


In Reality

by Applesandbannas747



Category: Fence (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-11-16 13:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 38,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18095312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Applesandbannas747/pseuds/Applesandbannas747
Summary: Seiji Katayama isn't a fan of his roommate. At all. Which is why it comes as such an unpleasant shock when that same roommate appears in his dreams. Seiji doesn't know what to make of it all, but he knows one thing for sure: no matter what his dreams would have him believe, in reality, Nicholas Cox is nothing but an annoyance.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate summary: In which Nick is really bad at wearing a shirt and Seiji gets really good at wearing shirts.

Seiji woke up exactly one minute before his alarm went off. The alarm was there for redundancy, truth be told. He never needed it. His body knew his schedule and woke up with sixty seconds to spare. Sixty seconds to preemptively turn off the alarm, so as not to wake his snoring roommate. Not, Seiji thought with distaste, that Nicholas would wake up even if the alarm blared long and loud. Nicholas could sleep through anything.

Alarm turned off, Seiji stepped out of bed and allowed himself a single yawn. Then he navigated through his morning routine by the light of the single lamp Nicholas never turned off, shining through the blue curtain bisecting the room. In ten minutes, Seiji was ready to leave and start his morning in earnest. As he walked to the door, Nicholas gave a particularly loud snore, and Seiji glanced to him, lip curling. He did not enjoy sharing his space with Nicholas Cox. Not at all. But, when his eyes fell on his sleeping roommate, the strangest thing happened. Instead of turning to go after a cursory glance, Seiji’s eyes lingered. Nicholas was as unruly in sleep as he was in everything else and it irritated Seiji greatly. He’d only managed to keep a single foot under his blanket, his pillow was nowhere near his head, and his shirt—an atrocious black tank top—was bunched up so high on his body that he might as well have forgone it all together. It was on this particular detail of the tableau that Seiji found his attention drawn. To the lean muscles exposed by the ill worn shirt, to all that skin glowing warm and soft in the lamplight.

“Heathen,” Seiji muttered to himself, ripping his eyes away from the sight. Another item for the endless list of reasons Nicholas was such a troublesome roommate: he couldn’t even wear a shirt correctly.

***

Over the next week, Seiji started to notice just how terrible at wearing shirts Nicholas really was. For one thing, Seiji noted with disapproval, Nicholas didn’t always wear a shirt. He had an affinity for bumbling about their room bare-chested, like some sort of neanderthal. Furthermore, on the occasion when he was actually wearing a shirt, it was always hiked up to show off a hip bone or varying amounts of stomach or back. Seiji hated it. Even Nicholas’s uniform seemed to be conspiring again Seiji, riding up whenever Nicholas yawned—which was frequently, or raised his hand in class—which happened less frequently, or reached an arm around Bobby’s shoulders with good-natured affection. It all made Seiji highly irritable. One would think that after sixteen years of life, wearing a shirt would be easy.

He told Nicholas as much one night as they got ready for bed. Seiji had had a long day, as he often did, and was already short-tempered. So was it any wonder that he finally snapped upon seeing Nicholas shed his clothes, right there in the middle of the room, and pull on his stupid shorts and tank top, only to leave the shirt half folded in on itself rather than pulling it down like a decent human being?

“How hard is it,” Seiji asked Nicholas with a frown, “to wear a shirt correctly?”

“Huh?” Nicholas responded, eloquent as ever. He looked down at himself blankly, then back up to Seiji. “It’s on right.”

“It most certainly is not,” Seiji was incredulous. How did the moron count  _that_  as right?

“It’s not inside out,” Nicholas seemed to answer his thoughts. “Or backward. So it’s on right.”

“You’re not meant to wear shirts like that,” Seiji informed him, glaring pointedly at the exposed skin between the band of Nicholas’s shorts and the folds of his shirt. It took Nicholas a long moment to understand, during which he just stood there looking at Seiji as if he were crazy.

“Oh,” Nicholas laughed, and, finally looking down again, he seemed to register his midriff for the first time. Deftly, he smoothed the shirt down into place before smirking at Seiji. “Is  _that_  why you’ve been glaring at me so much lately? I thought I’d seriously done something to piss you off.”

“You have,” Seiji said briskly, then turned his attention back to preparing for bed. He could feel Nicholas’s eyes fixed on him, and Seiji had the unpleasant feeling that Nicholas was amused. Seiji straightened his shoulders and ignored it. Nicholas’s entertainment would be well worth it if he’d start wearing his shirt like a civilized person.

Of course, that was asking too much. Nicholas did no such thing. In fact, it seemed to Seiji like Nicholas’s proclivity for misusing—or forgoing—shirts had increased. And he didn’t stop at that, either. Nicholas would purposefully stretch and meet Seiji’s eyes across the room, daring him to comment on the inch or two of skin that appeared. It had been going on like this for the better part of a week, and Seiji thought he might go insane. Or, at the very least, develop an eye twitch and a matching ulcer.

He shot a reproachful glance at Nicholas as he entered the room. His roommate was already installed on his bed, reading some asinine book that looked more the size of a pamphlet than a proper novel. Nicholas caught Seiji’s eye and smirked, looking down at his torso, which wasn’t covered much by his shirt. No surprises there. The surprise came, however, when Nicholas grabbed the back of his tank top and pulled it off in one swift motion, then threw it on the floor, with a wink at Seiji. A  _wink_. The barbarian had the gull to wink at him, of all things.

“Nobody wants to see that, Nicholas,” Seiji chided, trying to keep his temper, and the red flush he felt with it, at bay.

“I figured if you find the way I wear my shirt so offensive, I’d remove the problem.” His shit-eating grin sang of the fact that he’d really just meant to further antagonize Seiji. Seiji would not rise to the bait. He was above such things. With one more look, loaded with all the disgust and contempt he could muster, aimed at the shirtless boy, Seiji stomped to his side of the curtain and firmly readjusted it so that not a single inch of Nicholas Cox was visible.

When he fell asleep, much to his irritation, he dreamt of Nicholas. Even in his dreams, Nicholas had an inability to wear his nightshirt correctly. But, in his dream, Seiji didn’t mind it. Nicholas prowled toward him, determination in his eyes. Seiji was confused, momentarily, to find that look without an épée in sight. It was a look reserved for competition. For when Nicholas loudly and defiantly declared that he would beat Seiji. That he would make Seiji  _see_  him. A shiver seemed to run through his entire body. He certainly saw Nicholas now. He was so close, close enough for Seiji to feel the heat radiating off his skin. Close enough that Seiji felt compelled to take a step back, then another, and another. He thought he ought to just punch Nicholas, rather than meekly allow himself to be backed against a wall, but there was an anticipation to this dance. Seiji wanted to see what would come next. His back hit the wall, and Nicholas’s arm fell heavily beside his head, every part of him  _too_  close now, but Nicholas had fenced him in. He couldn’t escape. He didn’t want to.

“I’ll be the one,” Nicholas growled, guttural and fierce, “I’ll be the only one…” He leaned in closer—

Seiji woke up. He jolted to attention so quickly he checked the time, expecting it to be 3:59 AM. But it was only 1:08 AM, and his heart still thundered as if he’d just fenced ten bouts in a row. It took only twenty horrifying seconds for his dream to come back to him. Seiji stared in alarm at the duck curtain, his entire body feeling uncomfortably hot. Nicholas snored once, then fell silent, unaware and uncaring that Seiji had just woken up from a nightmare.

It was that wink, Seiji decided, that wink and the practical strip tease Nicholas was so intent on giving him that had caused that dream. Nothing more. Seiji didn’t like a single thing about Nicholas. And he most definitely did  _not_  enjoy the constant glimpses of skin and muscle Nicholas’s abysmal dressing habits provided.

***

Seiji tried not to look at Nicholas. He’d had a terrible time trying to sleep for the remainder of the night and was in as bad a mood as they came. But even with his determination to ignore Nicholas’s very existence, Seiji’s eyes betrayed him. They trailed on Nicholas, and as they did, he tried to manage the emotions he felt. Embarrassment seemed to be the predominant one. He’d never before been quick to blush, but he found himself almost constantly heated, either at the thought of last night’s dream, or at the sight of Nicholas in the flesh.

By the time Seiji arrived in the gym for fencing practice, he was exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to fall into his bed and sleep. And dream of normal, sensible things, without any stupid boys or their stupid shirts to ruin things. But he was a long way from getting there. As he entered the locker room, the first thing Seiji saw was Nicholas in the middle of an animated discussion with Eugene. It was such an engaging conversation that it must have distracted him from dressing, because, at that moment, Nicholas stood in nothing but his fencing knickers, and they weren’t even done up all the way. Seiji thought the bundle of white in Nicholas’s hand might have been his shirt, but there was no telling for certain.

“I’ve noticed you leering at him a lot, lately,” a voice purred in Seiji’s ear. How long had he been staring at Nicholas? Surely not  _that_  long. But Aiden had seen it, anyway. Seiji turned his attention to Aiden, scowling already.

“He’s an eyesore,” Seiji said with such contempt that Aiden paused. Then he smiled and shook his head.

“No, if he were an eyesore, you wouldn’t look at him so much. Let’s be honest, you’ve got the hots for him, haven’t you?”

Seiji just gawped at Aiden, completely taken aback. Leering? Getting the hots? Seiji didn’t do those things. Least of all for Nicholas. “You’re mistaken,” Seiji said tightly. But Aiden just smiled wider.

“I could help you,” he said, and Seiji was about to just walk away. But something snagged in his brain. Nicholas, in his mind, too close, too intense, too damn much. Nicholas, passionate and determined. Nicholas, about to kiss him. In his dream, terrible and traitorous as it had been, he’d  _liked_  those things.  _Wanted_  that kiss. He had to know if any of it were real. And, when it proved to be entirely unpleasant in real life, he could dismiss the absurd notion of attraction once and for all. And then he’d be back to disliking Nicholas wholeheartedly.

“How could you help?” Seiji asked, and he didn’t miss the surprise in Aiden’s face. He recovered quickly, sly grin back in place.

“I’m a relationship guru,” he said with an easy shrug. “I’m glad my offer has caught your attention, young Padawan, because you’d be doomed without me.”


	2. Chapter 2

Seiji had better things to do with his Saturday afternoon than be dragged shopping by Aiden Kane. And yet, here he was.

“Now, it’ll be a little bit tricky, but I think we can manage it,” Aide said. “I’ve done some reconnaissance for you. Actually, Eugene did. He’s friends with Nick.”

“I’m aware,” Seiji said dryly. Nicholas, standing half-naked in the locker room talking exuberantly with Eugene flashed in Seiji’s mind before he could stop it. He frowned. Aiden laughed.

“So, genius matchmaker that I am, I recruited Eugene to help us.”

“You did what?” Seiji froze, turning to glare at Aiden.

“Don’t give me that,” Aiden said, wrapping his arm around Seiji’s shoulders and steering him through the store. Seiji broke away within seconds but followed Aiden nonetheless. “Eugene is our inside man, our sleeper-agent. So far, he’s just confirmed what I already suspected.”

“Can you get to your point, please?” Seiji asked, a hand to his head in a useless effort to ward off the headache he knew was brewing. He should  _never_  have let Aiden get involved in this. The trouble was, Seiji had no idea how to maneuver Nicholas into a situation wherein he could test his curiosity without help.

“Nick likes cute guys. And girls, too, Eugene says. But, lucky for you, he definitely likes guys. The hard part in this is that he likes  _cute_  guys.”

“Like Bobby?” Seiji asked, realizing that Nicholas did spend an awful lot of time with the short, sweet-faced boy.

“Bobby will die of happiness when I tell him you think he’s cute,” Aiden grinned. “Sure, like Bobby. I haven’t seen any pictures of exes or crushes, so I can’t say for sure. But Bobby is a good reference of cuteness, so I’m sure he falls into Nick’s type.” Seiji frowned, and Aiden nodded. “Exactly,” he said, though Seiji hadn’t uttered a word. “ _You’re_  not cute.”

“No,” Seiji agreed. “And I’ve no desire to be cute, either.” He thought of Bobby’s messy buns and constant smiles, then of his floppy bow and pleated skirt.

“Don’t worry,” Aiden laughed again, correctly interpreting Seiji’s sudden silence. “We won’t go total makeover on you. But there are some things we can do to rack up even  _your_  cuteness appeal.”

“Is it entirely necessary to do so?” Seiji asked with persistent disdain.

“Seiji, my sweet summer child—,”

“Please never call me that again.”

“—It’s clear to me that you’re new to the art of seduction—,”

“Please don’t ever call it that again.”

“—But the truth is that you have to catch your prey with your appearance  _first_.”

“Please never refer to Nicholas as my prey again, either.”

“Looks are what get you in the door. After that, you’ll have to actually develop a personality and hope Nick likes it enough to let you stay once you’re in, but that’s not why you came to me, is it? You need help with getting  _in_ the door, right? Getting Nick’s attention?” Aiden probed but Seiji didn’t bother to give an answer. Aiden sighed. “Alright, I get it. First thing’s first and that’s how you dress.”

“We have a uniform,” Seiji pointed out as Aiden raked his fingers over shirts they passed by.

“And I know I can’t get you to change how you wear it, unfashionable as it may be,” Aiden tutted. “But that’s only during the day. Nick’s your roommate, so you have the unique advantage  _and_  disadvantage of never getting a rest from seducing him.”

“I told you to stop calling it that,” Seiji said with a scowl.

“So,” Aiden brought them to a stop and gestured around. It didn’t escape Seiji’s notice that they were in the women’s section, despite Aiden’s assurance that this wouldn’t be a Bobby worthy makeover. “We have to find you some cuter sleepwear than whatever it is you’re currently wearing.”

“I like my pajamas just fine, thanks.”

“But  _Nick_  would like the pajamas I picked out a lot better,” Aiden grinned, then went about pulling things from their place and piling them into Seiji’s unwilling arms. Seiji wanted to dump the mountain of soft fabric onto the ground but he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, reminding himself  _why_  this was necessary. So that he could be free of Nicholas’s gravity once and for all. He just had to prove to himself that he didn’t want to fall into orbit. And to do  _that_ , he had to endure  _this_.

“I fail to see how what I wear to bed will, what was it you said, increase my cuteness?” Seiji said the last word with contempt, raising a curious eyebrow as Aiden added a huge heather grey night shirt with an, admittedly cute, Micky Mouse graphic to the pile.

“Everyone knows that overlarge shirts are adorable,” Aiden said, like Seiji were the imbecile here. “Especially,” Aiden grinned, pulling Seiji over to a rack full of pajama pants, “when paired with cute shorts,” and he fished through the rack, expertly locating shorts to match a good number of the shirts he’d already picked. Seiji saw with dismay that they were exactly his size.

“How did you know—,”

“I’ve taken enough pants off of enough boys to be something of an expert about what’ll fit who,” Aiden said breezily. Seiji just shook his head, staring with distaste at Aiden’s newest selection—a pair of sweatpants with a heart on the left butt cheek. At least they were full-length pants.

“I’m not wearing that,” Seiji told Aiden even as the older boy tossed it on the pile. “And I’m certainly not wearing the shorts, so you can put all of those back.”

“You don’t have to wear them if you don’t want to,” Aiden said with a shrug, “but it’ll accelerate Nick’s interest in you.” Seiji scoffed. There was only so much dignity he was willing to surrender to this endeavor. “We’re getting it all, just in case.”

“Then we’re done here,” Seiji huffed. “I’ve more pajamas than I have any need for now, and it would be obscene to get anything more if you won’t let me put things back.”

“Fine, we’ve got a good haul. But let’s drop by the men’s jammies, too. Sometimes they have cute things, we should make sure.” Seiji didn’t even bother arguing. Perhaps, he thought hopefully, they could add some more dignified pants to his new wardrobe.

But Aiden wasn’t done, even after they’d scoured the men’s pajamas and come away with even more large shirts and cuffed sweat pants that Seiji didn’t need. Aiden insisted they find suitably cute day wear for the weekends.

“We’ll have to actually cater to your style, which is unfortunate, but since you need to actually wear these outfits in public, it’s unavoidable. I’ll let you pick this time. But I have to vet everything, got it? You’re too practical and bland to be trusted.”

“I’ve got plenty of clothes already, Aiden,” Seiji tried to explain, again, but Aiden laughed.

“White tees won’t cut it.”

“I don’t see what’s wrong with them,” Seiji defended. “And white isn’t the only color of shirt I own.”

“Yeah, you have, like, one blue one, isn’t that right? Anyway, t-shirts just aren’t cute. Sure, they can  _look_  cute, if worn by a cute person in a cute way, but we both know you need all the help you can get in being cute. So go pick out something else and I’ll tell you why you can’t wear that, either.”

Seiji glared, pushing the mountain of pajamas into Aiden’s arms before storming off to examine the rows of clothes in search of something suitable. He had no idea what qualified as cute and was irritated that he had to shop for things he didn’t want in order to get a boy he  _didn’t want._

It took almost a whole hour for Aiden and Seiji to agree on a long-sleeved shirt with thumb cuffs, a cowl neck jumper, a form-fitting hoodie, a sweater that, at Aiden’s instance, was a size too large, and a variety of other shirts, none of which had a proper collar and many of which had patterns Seiji would not usually have tolerated, but they were the lesser of evils. Seiji had put his foot down on pants shopping, however, and Aiden had conceded easily enough.

“There’s not much you can do to make pants cute without getting tacky,” Aiden had said. “There’s a whole lot you can do to make pants look awful, like getting flared cuffs or khakis, but I’ve seen your pants. Standard skinny jeans. They go with everything, so we’ll be fine.” Seiji had breathed a sigh of relief.

By the time they were heading towards checkout, Seiji had long since fetched a cart for them. Rolling through the aisles, however, was too mundane for Aiden, who decided on taking a shortcut back through the women’s section. He wheeled to a stop, turning on Seiji with wicked amusement in his eyes. Seiji wondered what he could possibly be planning now.

“I bet I know something else Nick would like,” Aiden drawled, raising an eyebrow suggestively. Seiji noticed for the first time where they stood.

“We’re leaving,” was all he said, continuing to walk.

“Amazing,” Aiden said, face falling. “I can’t ruffle your feathers at all.”

“Have you been trying to?” Seiji asked, glancing at Aiden as he brought the cart around an inconvenient cluster of mannequins. “That actually explains a lot. I thought you were naturally this irritating.”

“Seriously, I thought the booty shorts would get you, but you only turned up your nose at them and soldiered on, not a hint of embarrassment. And now I bring you to the lingerie section and suggest you get something  _special_  to show off for our dear friend Nick, and you don’t bat an eye. It’s no fun at all.”

Seiji’s mind reeled at the fleeting and unwelcome thought of Nicholas seeing him in such attire and, to his utmost horror, his cheeks heated at once. Aiden seemed to brighten up.

“That’s more like it!” Then his sly, cutting smile was back. “So it’s only Nick that can rile you up, is that right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Seiji growled, quickening his stride.

“Actually, that brings us to our next step in Operation Seduce Nick—,”

“For the last time,” Seiji hissed, “I’m  _not_  seducing him, so stop calling it that.”

“Sweetcheeks,” Aiden said, words dripping with condescension, “that’s exactly what you’re doing. But, fine, let’s call it Operation Nick, shall we?” Aiden steered them into an empty checkout lane, moving things to the counter as he continued talking, “We’ve got the look, but we need to work on the attitude. Nothing drastic, obviously, we can’t have you getting into anything with straight-up lies, can we? But there’re little things you can do to attract him. I’ll coach you over lunch. I’m starving.” Lunch had come and gone hours ago, a fact Seiji was sure wouldn’t bother Aiden in the least, nor convince him out of  _having lunch_  now.

“I must be losing my mind,” Seiji said under his breath as he paid for his abundance of  _cute_  things. “To actually be taking advice from you.”

“You’re lucky to have such a generous senior to mentor you,” Aiden said, as self-satisfied as he’d been when he’d beaten Seiji during their first match. Seiji laughed unkindly.  _Lucky_  was not the word he would have used.

Once they’d found a bistro Aiden wanted to eat at and once Aiden had placed his order, he turned his attention on Seiji with a critical once over.

“Side note, definitely mess up your hair before bed a little. It’ll bring the whole outfit together. God, I hope you can piece my carefully thought-out ensembles together without ruining them.”

“I’m sure I can manage to dress myself just fine, thank you.”

“I’m not so sure. But, moving on, I have some pointers about how you should act around Nick to entice him.”

“I hate this already.”

“You should try and blush around him, that  _always_  gets guys to do whatever I want when I use it. It’s a learned skill, to be able to turn it on for your target, but it looks like  _your_  target might actually get that out of you without any effort on your part. That’ll make it easier.”

“He does  _not_ ,” Seiji started, then scowled, realizing he couldn’t win this battle. After all, he’d flushed at the mention of Nicholas earlier. Aiden was sure to count that as proof, no matter what he said now.

“And you might want to try acting embarrassed or coy around him, but I’m not holding out hope for that one. You’re not much of an actor, let’s face it. Oh, but you absolutely need to smile at him. Eugene says he has it from Nick that he likes people who smile. Hm, what else? Try to soften your edges in general. And maybe don’t talk in general either, nothing you say is ever cute and you usually say something mean somehow.”

“So I should shut up, blush, smile prettily, and pretend to be embarrassed and soft?” Seiji clarified.

“Exactly!”

“I’m ignoring all your advice.”

“It’s good stuff, you’ll see. Just keep it in mind, and you’ll find a balance. I’ll set Eugene on monitoring Nick’s interest and we’ll see what works.”

“You seem rather invested in my relationship with Nicholas. Why?” Seiji asked, suspicious. He knew why Aiden had initially offered to help. It had been a jab to get under his skin. But he’d gone to more effort than a joke should warrant.

“I’m interested,” Aiden shrugged. “And getting Nick to go for you because of my personal coaching and styling advice would be a pretty impressive achievement, you must admit. I can seduce anyone, but to be so good at seduction that I can help even  _you_  get the guy you want.  _That’s_  true mastery.”

“I suppose I should thank you,” Seiji said, as way of thanks.

“Thank me properly when Nick is yours,” Aiden said, stirring his pink lemonade with a sickly sweet smile.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone saying that this is all completely unnecessary, trust me, it is COMPLETELY 100% necessary because I said so. Trust me, I am a scientist. A pajama scientist. Ily guys thanks for putting up with me XD 💜

“Seriously, Gene,” Nicholas’s voice seeped through the door, his elephantine stomps ceasing as he and, presumably, Eugene stopped outside it. Seiji cast his eyes around the room once more, ensuring that all his new and many possessions were properly hidden away. “It’s not like that.”

“I don’t know, bro, you don’t pull out  _The Stretch_  just to piss someone off.” Yes, Eugene was definitely on the other side of the door with Nicholas.

“I do, though!” Nicholas insisted. “He’s got his panties in a bunch over the way I wear shirts,” Seiji rankled at this but bit his tongue. No use barging into their ‘private’ conversation. “He gets so upset, you should see the way he looks at me. It’s like he wants to punch me or something. Over my  _shirt_. Can you believe that prude?”

“What I can’t believe is you,” Eugene made a noise halfway between a sigh and a laugh and without seeing his face, Seiji had no way of knowing whether Eugene was more exasperated or amused.

“It’s just funny to provoke him,” Nicholas said, confirming that he’d been doing it all on purpose with the specific intent to annoy Seiji. It wasn’t surprising but Seiji still narrowed his eyes at the door, as if Nicholas would be able to feel his wrath through the wood.

“Oh, man, you’re  _provoking_  him all right,” Eugene laughed and Seiji stiffened. He really would have preferred Aiden to keep the plan between them. Instead, he’d gone off and told Eugene, leading to comments like  _that_. It was a good thing, really, that Nicholas was so dense. “All I’m saying is that you’re pulling all the moves out for Seiji and you’re too dumb to see it.”

“Fuck off,” Nicholas said, but with much less venom than Seiji thought ought to accompany the phrase. “You keep bringing this up like it’s somehow a big deal and I keep telling you, I’m only doing it all to piss Seiji off. And it’s working.”  _Keep bringing it up?_  He wondered if Eugene could possibly be as keen an observer as Aiden. Seiji resolved he’d have to be better at keeping his emotions in line if even Eugene could see how Nicholas’s antics had affected him.

“Sure, whatever you say,” Eugene’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“Bye, Gene,” Nicholas said, clearly aware of the sarcasm as well. Seiji heard the sound of a key scraping into the lock and a moment later Nicholas was in the room, dressed head to toe in black, as was typical of him.  _And Aiden says my fashion sense is predictable,_  Seiji thought with mild irritation. “Hey, Seiji,” Nicholas said with a careless glance at him before disappearing to his bed.

Nicholas acted as if he and Eugene hadn’t just been talking about him. The oaf either thought he was quiet enough or that the door was thick enough to have made his conversation with Eugene private. Seiji almost brought it up, just to bring it to Nicholas’s attention that he was too loud to be stealthy. But it was likely that Nicholas already knew this and simply didn’t care. Besides, it would only incite another incident involving Nicholas’s shirt, Seiji was sure. And he didn’t think that would be the best idea just now.

Dream Nicholas and Real Nicholas were too close to the same when Nicholas took off his shirt in their small room. And when they overlapped, Seiji’s wants from that dream transferred to real life. Even now, they were starting to blur, those lines between reality and dreams. It was inevitable but still unwelcome when he thought of Nicholas coming nearer and nearer, thought of him leaning in, thought of him—

“Serious question,” Nicholas’s voice rang loud and real, pulling Seiji from his thoughts just in time. “Do you think anyone would notice if I wore my shirt inside out on Monday? I got a grass stain yesterday and I can’t get it out now.” Nicholas stepped casually over to Seiji’s side of the room, something he did very rarely, to show Seiji his planned outfit for Monday. Seiji stared at him in horror. Nicholas had indeed flipped his shirt inside-out, his school blazer worn over it in an attempt to hide this.

“You’re an absolute moron,” Seiji told him, trying to assess whether Nicholas was serious or if this was a fresh new way to provoke him. He wasn’t sure which was worse. “Why not hide the  _stain_  under your blazer instead of trying to hide your entire shirt?”

“It doesn’t fit under the blazer,” Nicholas sulked.

“How did you manage to get a grass stain, anyway?”

“Uh, by playing in the grass?”

“Yes, obviously, but  _why_  were you playing in the grass?”

“Because it’s fun? Gene challenged me to a wrestling match if you want specifics. I think I won but don’t bring it up to Gene, he’s sensitive about it.”

“I see.”

“So, what do you think of my new look?”

“It’s terrible, you can’t go to school dressed like that.”

“That bad?”

“Yes.” Seiji, for reasons unknown even to him, took pity on Nicholas. “Give it to me.”

“What?”

“Your shirt. Give it to me,” Seiji repeated, holding out his hand for emphasis.

“You want…my shirt?” Nicholas asked, staring blankly. “ _This_ shirt?”

“Yes, hand it over,” Seiji scowled. If he’d known Nicholas would be so difficult, he wouldn’t have bothered. But then Nicholas shrugged out of his jacket and pulled off his shirt and Seiji suddenly realized that he’d made a terrible mistake. Nicholas handed Seiji the shirt and didn’t bother pulling on another one. Seiji turned his eyes on the shirt at once, determined not to look at Nicholas, standing bare-chested in his personal space.

“What did you do to get the stain out?” Seiji asked, voice sounding only slightly strained as he examined the green streaks marring the white button-up.

“I washed it,” Nicholas answered. Seiji looked at him, dumbfounded.

“That’s all? You expected it to come out with just a wash?”

“I’ve never had to deal with grass stains before,” Nicholas defended.

“They’re not particularly obvious on black,” Seiji agreed, turning back to the shirt in his hands too quickly to be natural. “You’ll want to set it in vinegar and cold water, then wash it again. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.”

“Thanks!” Nicholas reached for his shirt, grabbing it carelessly from Seiji’s hands, accidentally enclosing two of Seiji’s fingers in his grip along with the shirt. Seiji jerked his hand away and snapped his head up to glare at Nicholas, only to find him smiling brightly. Too brightly. And too close. Seiji took a step back, remembering his dream again. But, in reality, Nicholas didn’t follow. He turned away to tug on a shirt before running off to the laundry room.

Nicholas must have gotten distracted since, instead of returning to their room shortly thereafter, he’d disappeared for hours. Seiji was grateful for this, as he couldn’t banish Nicholas’s huge dopey grin from his mind. A huge dopey grin  _Seiji_ had caused. Try as he might to concentrate on schoolwork, that smile and flashes of a traitorous dream wouldn’t leave him alone. Finally, he gave up with a groan and went to get dressed for the night. He needed to get Nicholas to kiss him so he could be done with all this noise in his head.

He rifled through his newly stuffed pajama drawer, swallowing his pride and pulling out the atrocious sweats with the heart on the ass and a loose necked graphic tee depicting a cartoon elephant who was creating a heart with its trunk. His eyes fell on the shorts Aiden had picked out and Seiji slammed the drawer shut with extreme malice. He wasn’t  _that_  desperate. Yet. He suspected he might give in, given enough time with his strange and desperate thoughts.

Inspecting himself in the mirror, Seiji sighed, unable to decide if the outfit was giving the desired effect. He remembered Aiden’s advice, and grudgingly swept his hair out of its neat style, leaving it only slightly out of place but it was all he was willing to give tonight.

“Seiji, I gotta pee!” Nicholas had returned, it seemed.

“You could have used the restroom on the way back here,” Seiji huffed, ignoring the strange surge of nerves he got as he left the mirror to open the door and slide past Nicholas into their room.

“I like our toilet better than…” but Nicholas trailed off before finishing, eyes snagging on Seiji shamelessly. Seiji felt himself heat up.

“What?” Seiji snapped, resisting the urge to cross his arms over the elephant. Nicholas just stared and Seiji got even more embarrassed at the whole situation, which, in turn, drove him into a nervous sort of anger. “If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

“It’s just that—you’re wearing—,” Nicholas gestured. Seiji wondered if Aiden would say it was a good thing that Nicholas had noticed. He wondered if it were a step closer to his goal. But it didn’t feel like it was.

“Pajamas, yes,” Seiji responded impatiently. “You seem awfully surprised to learn that I wear them.”

“But…your blue ones,” Nicholas said lamely and Seiji decided to ignore him. He turned to his bed but as he was pulling back the covers he heard Nicholas breathe a surprised, “oh,” and he felt the immediate need to cover that stupid heart, so he slipped hurriedly under the blankets. “Well, I like them.”

“Thank you, I wore them specially in the hope that you would,” Seiji sneered like it was the most preposterous idea he’d ever heard. Nicholas had the decency to look abashed.

“I was just trying to be nice,” he said and Seiji was glad when he slammed the bathroom door. He hoped Nicholas hadn’t noticed how red he’d become. After all, he _had_ worn the pajamas specially to get Nicholas’s attention. And Nicholas  _had_ noticed. Liked them, even. 

***

“What do you think you’re wearing?” Aiden asked, having tracked Seiji down at breakfast despite Seiji’s efforts to avoid him.

“Clothes,” Seiji said coolly.

“Your school jacket, really? After all the trouble we went to yesterday?” Aiden sighed dramatically. “I bet you chickened out last night too.”

“I did not  _chicken out,”_  Seiji growled, eyes fixed angrily on his toast.

“Oh?” Aiden slid closer, conspiratorially. “Did Nick notice?”

“He stared at me like I was some sort of alien. You’d think he’d never seen me before.”

“Not like that, he hasn’t. Our plan is working.”

“If you say so.”

“It is.” Aiden stood then, to Seiji’s deep relief. “You’ve got him interested. He’ll start reassessing soon and, if you can convince him that you’re cute enough, you’ll have his full attention. You’re one of the people he sees the most but don’t let your guard down. There’s plenty of cute boys at this school for him to choose from if he decided to look farther. So lose the jacket, understood?”

Seiji glowered after him but he did stop by his room after breakfast to hang up his sports jacket. He’d only worn it because he got cold in the morning. He actually liked the shirt he’d picked for today, though he self-consciously tugged at the sleeves as Nicholas walked by him later in the day. To his disbelief, Nicholas said something to Bobby, whom he’d been talking with, then broke away to jog back over to Seiji.

“The grass came out,” he said excitedly and Seiji let out a small and surprised laugh.

“You came over just to tell me that?” Seiji asked but Nicholas was looking at him strangely, a small half-smile on his face and something in his eyes that was almost amusement, but not quite. A little absently, he nodded.

“Yeah, I did. And, I’m sorry, but did you just  _laugh?”_  Nicholas asked, and Seiji instantly pinked.

“No,” he denied on instinct, only realizing after he’d said it how childish it sounded. Clearly, he  _had_  just laughed.

“You totally did,” Nicholas grinned, and Seiji had to avert his eyes from the sight. It made his heart stutter and he didn’t like it. He tugged again at the cuffs on his shirt, readjusting the positioning of the thumb-slits, despite that they were perfectly in place. He could feel Nicholas watching him, which just made the panicky sensation in his stomach worsen. “You’re a lifesaver, I’d have been doomed without you.” It took a moment for Seiji to recall what they were talking about, his mind had drifted and scattered so much.

“You could have looked it up,” Seiji pointed out with intentional indifference, “It’s not that hard to figure out.”

“I guess. But thanks again, really.” Nicholas moved as if to clap his shoulder the way Seiji had seen him clap Eugene’s on countless occasions, but he stopped short, dropping his hand back to his side. Seiji wondered what had stopped him.

“You’re welcome,” he said stiffly, and this seemed to satisfy Nicholas, as he scampered away, likely to go find Bobby again. Seiji watched him leave with a frown. Bobby really was cute and Nicholas really did spend a lot of time with him. Seiji shook his head, it didn’t matter what was or was not going on between them. He only worried that Bobby may throw a wrench in his plan, nothing else. Once he’d gotten a kiss from Nicholas and proven that there was nothing real to that attraction, Bobby could have him. Seiji didn’t care.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seiji wearing cute pajamas? In MY fan fictions? It’s more likely than you think.

It wasn’t until Thursday, almost two full weeks since his shopping trip with Aiden, that Seiji felt desperate enough for the Micky Mouse pajamas. He’d had another dream the night before, a dream in which Nicholas smiled at him with all the power of the sun, then sprawled backward onto a grassy hill, his button-up shirt riding up as his arms stretched far above his head, sleeves rolled sloppily to the elbows. He’d whispered something, but Seiji hadn’t been able to hear it, had leaned over from where he sat next to Nicholas, asking him to say it again. Nicholas had grabbed his arm, which had, until that moment, been supporting him, and pulled Seiji down on top of him.

“I said,” Nicholas’s voice had been as soft as the look on his face, “that you’re intolerably cute.” Nicholas had run a hand through Seiji’s hair, stopping at the nape of his neck and pulling him in for a kiss that Seiji woke up before getting. Seiji had flushed bright red and still couldn’t close his eyes without remembering the scene. If ever there was a time Seiji Katayama had been desperate, it was now.

Seiji got ready for bed early and, for once, allowed his hair to dry as it wanted after his shower instead of brushing it into place. It was still too early to sleep, so Seiji decided to attack an essay on  _The Great Gatsby_ that was due in two weeks. When Nicholas returned to their room at a quarter to eight, Seiji was installed at the desk at the end of the other boy’s bed, working diligently at his essay, book splayed open and a highlighter stuck behind his ear.

Nicholas bumbled into the room with a last call to Eugene over his shoulder, but then the door shut and Nicholas fell silent. It was a highly unusual thing, for Nicholas Cox to be entirely still and entirely silent. Seiji glanced up from his work, fingers still typing out the remainder of the sentence he’d been writing. Nicholas stood in the doorway, eyes wide and staring dumbly at Seiji. Seiji frowned, hand drifting to the highlighter in his hair and tugging it free but even then Nicholas didn’t stop staring.

“What?” He asked. “Did you forget about the essay?”

“Uh, no, I just. I…” but words seemed to fail Nicholas. Seiji shook his head, refocusing on his essay. He’d been in the middle of making a really good point and he didn’t want to lose momentum now just because of Nicholas’s odd behavior. He tucked one leg up on the chair under him, settling back in to write, but as he did so he heard a strangled sort of noise from Nicholas, who still had not moved from his spot at the door.

“What, then?” Seiji asked impatiently, looking again at Nicholas. Nicholas, however, wasn’t looking at him anymore. Not at his face, in any case. Seiji followed Nicholas’s gaze to find that it was fixed on his legs. His very exposed legs, grey shorts with their soft pink drawstring all but hidden underneath the matching shirt. He’d forgotten. In his absorption with the essay, Seiji had actually forgotten what he’d put on that night. He went pinker than the mouse’s ears on his shirt.

“Sorry,” Nicholas hastened, hurrying to his bed, eyes glued to the floor the whole time. “I wasn’t—I didn’t mean to be, uh, staring.” Nicholas was glowing pink, too, which Seiji would have thought would make him feel less awkward. It didn’t. It only made him blush deeper.  _Of course,_  he thought,  _Nicholas_ would _have to say it out loud too, as if the staring wasn’t bad enough alone._  “I was just surprised.”

“Surprised?” Seiji groaned inwardly at himself. Why was he engaging in this line of conversation?

“You’ve been dressing differently lately, but I wasn’t expecting you to dress  _that_  differently.”

Seiji seized up, stiffening with preemptive offense. “Sorry to be dressing so  _differently.”_

“No,” Nicholas said, too loud and too fast, “No, I wasn’t saying it’s a bad thing,” Nicholas ran a hand through his hair, making it even messier than it already was. “I mean, it’s— _you_  look…nice? Good. It looks good.” He groaned, pulling his palm down his face. “I wasn’t expecting to see you in something so—but you look really—in that,” he nodded at Seiji, though his eyes frantically avoided actually  _looking_  at him, “you look really good. For a stuck-up asshole, at least.” Seiji stared at Nicholas a moment, then he smiled. Small, and more bemused than anything, but Nicholas stared at him openly for it, as surprised as he’d been upon seeing Seiji in this ludicrous outfit in the first place.

Not knowing what else to do, Seiji returned again to his essay but after typing only a few words, Aiden’s advice came back to him. Smile, and soften his edges, that’s what he’d told Seiji to do. So Seiji bit his lip, contemplating, then turned his head slightly, meeting Nicholas’s eyes—eyes that still hadn’t moved from their appraisal of him—from the corner of his own and smiled again, smaller even than the last one had been but sincere. “Thank you,” he said, then looked away with his face newly colored before he could see Nicholas’s response. But he could feel it. The prickle of Nicholas’s gaze returning again and again to him.

Aiden had been right. This was working. Nicholas was interested, perhaps even attracted, and soon he could have what he was after. If he played it right. And assuming he wasn’t reading Nicholas wrong.

Carefully, he reached for his book, making sure as he did so to let his shirt slip down over his right shoulder. It was three sizes too large for Seiji, and he’d been tugging it up all night. He didn’t this time, letting his collarbone and shoulder, and all the skin in between, stay exposed for Nicholas to see if he cared to look. It was almost fun, like convincing your opponent to attack you, assuring them that you weren’t trying to do so at all, then going in for the hit when they left themselves open in their attack.

Even with this new way of thinking of it, Seiji felt hot and prickly, too aware of Nicholas and of his own bare shoulder, of his legs, of the way he felt knowing Nicholas was examining both. Seiji’s hand nervously fluttered to his hair against his permission and he brushed his fingers through it once before dropping it again to his keyboard. Nicholas snorted and Seiji shot him a curious glance, which Nicholas caught and answered easily.

“You get on my case for misusing shirts, but look at you,” Nicholas pointed an accusing finger at Seiji’s shoulder. Seiji fought against the returning color, but it was useless. He was too on edge to begin with to have any hope of composure.

“It’s different,” Seiji snapped, pulling at his shirt before he thought better of it. Fixing it would only prove Nicholas’s point that it needed fixing and that Seiji was  _aware_  of it. But it was too late, he’d already tugged the collar back up onto his shoulder. Only, it fell right off again, further emphasizing its displacement. Seiji saw as Nicholas’s eyes tracked the entire scene with interest. He didn’t make a second attempt to right his shirt.

“Right,” Nicholas smirked. “It’s different because it’s you who suddenly doesn’t know how to get a shirt that fits instead of me.” He arched a brow skeptically, teasingly, and Seiji burned, suddenly doubting this plan after all. Then he realized that Nicholas was attacking, just as Seiji had maneuvered him to. And, come to think of it, hadn’t Aiden said something about blushing being able to get guys to do whatever he wanted? Maybe he was still in the lead.

“I purposefully got my shirt so large,” Seiji informed Nicholas with careful calculation. “I like it this way. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No,” Nicholas shrugged. “Not really. I just wanted it on the record that you’re a hypocrite.”

“Not exactly,” Seiji retorted, pivoting to Nicholas in his chair. “If you’ll recall, I took issue with you wearing your shirt like some sort of crop top. If I were to criticize you for showing shoulder, then I’d be a hypocrite. But I’ve never complained about you constantly parading around in a tank top, have I? It’s different.”

“Not really,” Nicholas grumbled staunchly. Seiji considered a moment.

“I’ll change then, if it bothers you so much.” And he made as if to stand. Nicholas sat up from his slouched position, at full attention.

“No!” Seiji sunk back into his chair, as he’d predicted he might. “Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to change on my account.”

“It  _is_  different,” Seiji insisted, unnecessary though it was to pursue the argument. He wanted to win it, couldn’t help but try. “You’re a walking disaster who doesn’t bother to pull down his shirt if you even bother to wear one. I made a purposeful aesthetic choice. One is the result of stupidity, the other is a result of preference.”

“Fine, you win,” Nicholas threw up his hands in mock surrender. Despite his words, Seiji was sure that Nicholas was unconvinced. “It’s an  _aesthetic_  choice.”

“Glad we’re on the same page. Now go back to your children’s book. Unlike some people, I’ve got work to do.”

“You can scoff at  _Spiderwick_  all you want, but it holds up. There’s goblins and dumbwaiters and pretty pictures and even some fencing. What more can you ask for from a book?”

It was another half-hour before Seiji’s leg started to cramp and he readjusted, pulling it out from under him. He realized how stiff his entire body was and decided to stand up and stretch. He hadn’t meant it as an invitation for Nicholas to gawk, hadn’t planned it as part of  _The Plan_ , but he realized that Nicholas wasn’t even pretending to read now, as Seiji was stretching his arms high above his head and arching his back. The way Nicholas’s eyes swept over his entire body made Seiji shiver. Nicholas looked almost hungry. There was no doubt that he liked what he saw.

Seiji wasn’t particularly vain, although others had certainly claimed he was. He was confident, as he should be, in himself, most notably in fencing. He had every right to be. He’d worked hard for fencing all his life. He wasn’t talented. Talent didn’t exist. Innate ability and potential only went so far. His skill in fencing was no accident. So his confidence was not unfounded there. And he’d always been aware of himself; he wasn’t blind enough to think he didn’t have a nice enough face and a good body—curtesy of all he did to be in top shape for fencing. And he’d had people fawning over him since he was very young—too young, probably, for that sort of attention. But he’d never felt as desirable as he did just then, under Nicholas’s greedy stare.

He sat back down with a contented sigh, feeling loose and stretched now. He was almost done with the rough draft, then he’d sleep. He’d have to tell Aiden about this tomorrow. He froze. Had he really just thought to seek Aiden out and tell him about his personal business? Yes, he thought with a smile at the absurdity of it, he had. Shaking his head and swiping his hair back with a hand, Seiji was ready to finish out the night. It had been a good one.

“You’re doing this on purpose,” Nicholas said with conviction. There was no need to clarify what  _this_  was.

“Yes,” Seiji agreed, never ceasing his typing. He was almost done. Just the conclusion left now. The bed beside him creaked. Heavy footfalls on wooden floor sounded twice. A shadow fell over Seiji’s shoulder. He ignored it all, even still. Another couple sentences and he’d be—

Nicholas grabbed his arm, tugging him to his feet with urgency. Seiji allowed it, but he made a point of scowling. He barely had time to reach over and close his computer before Nicholas had grabbed that arm, too.

“What are you trying to do?” Nicholas asked, eyes boring into Seiji like he’d find an answer if he only looked hard enough.

“I’m not trying anything,” Seiji said, oddly breathless. “I’m succeeding, don’t you think?”

“What do you want from me?” Nicholas insisted, tightening his grip around Seiji’s arms, looking frantic.  _Well,_  Seiji thought,  _I should have tried the shorts sooner. They certainly did work fast._


	5. Chapter 5

“I want you to kiss me,” Seiji said, not seeing any point in concealing his goal at this juncture. Nicholas’s eyes widened farther, his fingers tightening around Seiji’s biceps. He hadn’t expected that. Seiji almost rolled his own eyes, before understanding the implications of his confession. Nicholas didn’t know the context behind it; all he knew was that Seiji had been dressing and acting strangely around him. And now he’d admitted he’d done it all for the purpose of a kiss. His cheeks heated again, more furiously than they had all night, and he opened his mouth to explain, to clarify, but Nicholas didn’t have any intention of hearing it.

Nicholas’s mouth covered Seiji’s and he wasted no time testing the waters. Seiji was surprised at the ferocity of the kiss, the way Nicholas bit at his lips and darted his tongue around his mouth, the way he pulled Seiji back for more every time he broke away for a gasp of air. He was even more surprised to find that he liked it, that he wanted Nicholas to hold him tighter, kiss him harder, keep pulling him back. Nicholas had a hand in his hair, the other wrapped around his lower back, traveling dangerously lower each moment. Seiji thought to wonder when he’d wake up from this dream, but even as he thought it, he dismissed it. Dream Nicholas and Real Nicholas had somehow overlapped in reality, but Seiji was sure this had to be truly _real_ by the way his entire body seemed to ache from it.

Nicholas made a guttural sound, like a pleased beast, and Seiji heard his own gasping breaths as Nicholas’s lips left his. He wanted to protest this stop but before he could think of any way to convey his displeasure, he felt the reemergence of Nicholas’s lips, this time brushing against his neck, then they were on his collarbone, then down to the exposed skin from his loose shirt, still hanging off one shoulder. It was here that Seiji felt the scrape of Nicholas’s teeth, and he shivered. Nicholas dragged his nails through Seiji’s hair, down his neck, down his back, until he was holding Seiji as if in a hug, still bitting and sucking at that same spot of skin.

It was better than the dream kisses he’d been denied by waking could possibly have been.

Thinking of his dreams left a hazy thought in Seiji’s mind and, all at once, he was annoyed at Nicholas for choosing today of all days to keep his shirt on properly. His hands moved from their grip on Nicholas’s arms, finding their way to the bottom of Nicholas’s black t-shirt as if by their own will. He paused, thinking of his options, and even of the consequences of this action. It was hard to think, and so his hands hovered uselessly. Nicholas chuckled against his skin, dragging his lips back up the expanse of shoulder and neck to Seiji’s mouth, kissing him again. Seiji felt Nicholas heft one of his arms away from his back, then Nicholas’s hand closed over one of his, guiding it up the front of his shirt. Seiji gasped as Nicholas pressed his hand against the warm skin of his stomach, causing Nicholas to laugh again.

Seiji pulled his hand free of Nicholas’s as he slid his second hand up the shirt too. Nicholas didn’t laugh at this, making a pleased  _hmm_ ing sound, almost like a purr, instead. Seiji marveled briefly at the feel of Nicholas’s muscles, his hip bone, the warm skin—all the things that had been taunting him for so long—under his fingers. As his hands explored Nicholas’s stomach and chest, then wrapped around to his back, Nicholas’s recently free hand traveled back to Seiji’s body, but Seiji yelped—an actual  _yelp_ —when it landed firmly on his ass. Nicholas jerked away at once.

“Shit, sorry,” he said, hands up, as if to assure Seiji they weren’t about to grab his ass again. “My bad. Shouldn’t have done that. Too fast.” Nicholas looked an odd mixture of embarrassed, guilty, and panicked.

“You surprised me,” Seiji gasped, still out of breath. “I wasn’t expecting—but it’s okay, I’m not mad.”

“Alright, cool,” Nicholas looked relieved, and Seiji found himself laughing. Nicholas stared at him, stunned to silence for a moment, then joined in. When they’d finished laughing, Nicholas ran a hand through his hair again. “Guess I ruined the mood, though.”

“We’ll call it a joint effort,” Seiji said, collecting his computer, book, and highlighter off the desk. He was putting them away when Nicholas decided to open his big mouth again.

“One more thing,” he said, and Seiji looked up to see Nicholas watching him intently as he crouched over his bag. He flushed at the attention, but he didn’t hate it. “I liked the highlighter behind your ear. It made you look like a sexy librarian,” he paused, “like a  _sleepy_ , workaholic, sexy librarian working from home. In case you wanted tips on how to seduce me in the future.”

Seiji took it back, he  _did_  hate the attention. Burning a deep scarlet now, he swiveled around to hurl his highlighter at Nicholas. Nicholas just caught it and blew Seiji a kiss, laughter clear in his eyes. Seiji regretted very much letting Nicholas know that his recent  _aesthetic choices_  had been for his benefit.

***

The lights were off and Seiji settled in bed before the issue struck him. He’d won the match, no doubt about it. He’d gotten Nicholas exactly where he’d wanted. He’d gotten Nicholas to kiss him, just as he almost had in Seiji’s dreams. But there was a huge, glaring issue. Seiji had  _liked_  kissing Real Nicholas as much as—no,  _more_ than—he’d wanted Dream Nicholas to kiss him. That hadn’t been part of  _The Plan._  No,  _The Plan_  had been to get Nicholas to kiss him and to hate it. To be able to dismiss the dreams as irrelevant, incorrect, unfounded  _dreams_  his mind had conjured because of Nicholas’s deliberate glimpses of skin and his stupid winks.

This wasn’t supposed to have happened. His dreams weren’t supposed to have been right. He wasn’t supposed to actually want Nicholas Cox, in the flesh, to kiss him. But he did. Even now, his lips buzzed from Nicholas’s urgent kisses, the dark bruise on his chest throbbed, pulsing in beat with his too-fast heart, and his body felt oddly cold, colder than he usually felt, and light with the absence of Nicholas’s arms wrapping him up tightly. Even his fingertips tingled at the memory of his annoying roommate's chest, stomach, and back beneath them. This wasn’t right at all. It wasn’t supposed to have happened.

But it had. And, Seiji recognized vaguely as he fell asleep, there was no going back from it.


	6. Chapter 6

Seiji sought Aiden out at breakfast. He wasn’t proud of it, but he wasn’t sure who else to confide in. Aiden was already aware of half the mortifying situation Seiji now found himself in.

“I need to talk to you,” Seiji said, sanding over Aiden’s shoulder and interrupting his conversation with Harvard. “Now.” Aiden blinked up at him in utter astonishment, as did Harvard.

“Alright,” Aiden said easily, but it was clear he was curious, bolting out of his seat and hooking his arm through Seiji’s as if they were old friends. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Not here,” Seiji said, and Aiden nodded, understanding. He stayed quiet until Seiji had pulled them far away from the main school building, down close to the path they took to get to the clubhouse.

“Something happened,” Aiden quipped, “for you to bring  _me_  out  _here_  to talk about it. I’m listening.”

“It worked,” Seiji said, so blasé that Aiden took a handful of seconds to get it.

“It worked?” He parroted, then his eyes widened and he grinned hugely. “You got him?” Seiji nodded. “You’ve got to give me more than that. What did it?”

“Irrelevant—,”

“I refuse to let us get to whatever it is you actually want to talk about until you tell me which jamjams got Nick to bite. Or kiss, as the case may be.”

“Bite works fine, too,” Seiji said, and regretted his quick tongue as Aiden let out a delighted cackle.

“Was it the Mickey Mouse set?”

“How did you—?”

“It had to be that or the whale shirt with the blue shorts for him to have broken so fast, but you wouldn’t have the sense to pair the whales with the shorts. So I went for the obvious choice.”

“Moving on,” Seiji said.

“Yes, what’s wrong?”

“I didn’t—,” Seiji groaned, “I wasn’t supposed to actually like N—,” he cut off, corrected, “kissing Nicholas.”

“I don’t follow,” Aiden said flatly. “What do you mean you weren’t supposed to like kissing him? That’s why you went through all this trouble, isn’t it? To kiss Nick? Because you  _wanted_  to kiss him?”

“Yes, I went through all this trouble to kiss him, but not because I wanted to kiss him.” Seiji launched into an explanation at Aiden’s blank, uncomprehending stare.

“So,” Aiden said slowly, once Seiji had finished. “You decided to kiss him to prove that you didn’t want to kiss him.”

“Yes, that sums it up aptly.”

“But then you liked kissing him.”

“Yes. Do you see my problem?”

“Sure,” Aiden nodded sagely. “But there’s an obvious solution, you realize.”

“What?”

“Date him.”

“What?” Seiji asked again, less eager and more alarmed.

“Date. Him. So you didn’t expect to like kissing Nick, but you did like it. So what? Just keep kissing him. Easy peasy.”

“I’m not sure I want to date him,” Seiji said, crossing his arms.

“Why not?”

“I don’t like him.”

“Sure you do.”

“I don’t,” Seiji insisted, but he thought of Nicholas’s sunshine smile and his conviction faltered. Aiden just smirked.

“Date him anyway. If it turns out you don’t like him, break up with him. If you do like him, keep dating him.” Aiden made it sound so simple that Seiji’s panic was starting to subside.

“Alright,” Seiji agreed, but his panic spiked one last time. “Wait, what if Nicholas doesn’t want to date me?”

“Trust me,  _that_  won’t be a problem.” Aiden laughed and Seiji shot him a questioning look. “Eugene says Nick’s been subconsciously flirting with you for months. Something about stretching to show off skin when you’re around to see.”

Seiji remembered a conversation between Eugene and Nicholas on that very topic. At the time, Nicholas had insisted he did it purely to annoy Seiji. Seiji hadn’t doubted that before this moment.

***

Most people thought Seiji was blunt. They weren’t wrong, to be sure. He  _was_  blunt. Blunt to a fault. Which was why it surprised Seiji that he couldn’t march up to Nicholas and ask if they were dating. Seiji wanted to know where he stood, so he could properly assess how to proceed. He was unclear of where he was now, but he’d done nothing thus far to clarify anything. He wasn’t typically shy or nervous or passive, but the thought of asking Nicholas what they were now—of what they  _could_  be—was terrifying. He didn’t appreciate that Nicholas had the power to terrify him over something so trivial.

Nicholas waved at him cheerfully during lunch, and smiled whenever they made eye contact as they went about their days. Seiji wasn’t an expert at reading social cues or body language, but even he could see the difference in this behavior from what could be expected of their interactions even just the day before. But Nicholas made no more effort to clarify what their kiss meant than Seiji did. It was a waiting game, now. Who would break first and ask? Seiji didn’t plan on losing.

Aiden had helped direct him towards this new course of action. He had to find out if his attraction, which had transferred from dream to real life, much to his dismay, would also translate into  _more_  than attraction. Did he actually like Nicholas? Seiji was even more uncertain about his feelings for the stupid boy than he was his current relationship with him. But surely he’d be able to tell if he dated Nicholas for awhile. It was as Aiden had said: if he liked dating Nicholas, it had to mean he liked  _Nicholas_  himself. And if he didn’t like dating Nicholas, he’d break up with him and this whole thing would be over. Whatever the outcome, Seiji would have his answer and that’s what he wanted most. Now he needed to get Nicholas to ask him out, or ask if they  _were_  going out, instead of just kiss him. Though he wouldn’t mind a couple kisses along the way. Seiji figured the concepts were close enough that the general method of getting a kiss ought to transfer over to this new goal, too.

Which meant he didn’t retire his new pajamas, as he’d originally planned to once he’d kissed Nicholas. Of course, two weeks ago, he’d been working under the presumption that, once that kiss was obtained, he would no longer want to appeal to Nicholas in any way. Now, he tucked away the whale shirt and blue shorts Aiden had mentioned for another desperate night, pulling out loose sweats with cuffed ankles and one of the standard slightly large night shirts he’d already grown used to. What he wasn’t used to was the care it took to get dressed for bed, the way he had to choose his clothes carefully with Nicholas’s reception in mind. He’d never worried over any of it before. But the match wasn’t over, or perhaps a new one had begun, and Seiji was prepared to win by any means necessary. And cute pajamas had brought him this far. He could put up with the indignity of it a while longer.

The doorknob rattled soon after Seiji had showered and dressed, and in came Nicholas. Seiji was acutely aware how the first thing Nicholas did was check to see what he was wearing. Nicholas smirked, and Seiji narrowed his eyes, recognizing this look as a sign that he was about to say something he found entertaining. Something Seiji, no doubt, would  _not_  find entertaining.

“If you want me to kiss you, Seiji, all you have to do is ask,” Nicholas said, stepping directly to Seiji’s side of the room, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “But I do appreciate you dressing up for me.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Seiji snapped. Nicholas made it sound as if Seiji had bought lingerie after all, and was wearing that instead of actual pajamas.  _Dressing up,_  what an undignified way to put it. “And who says I’m wearing this for  _you?”_

“You said that, Seiji. In so many words.” Nicholas reminded him. Seiji flushed.  _Right,_  he thought, annoyed,  _I did say that._

“I’ve decided I like these pajamas, and I’ve already got them, so—,” Seiji gave up with a huff at Nicholas’s laughter.

“I think it’s cute,” Nicholas said, laughter gone, his voice was sincere and intense. Seiji frowned. He was anything  _but_  cute. Even Aiden had agreed with him on that. But that was the goal, wasn’t it, to entice Nicholas through his alleged cuteness? Even knowing it was a victory, Seiji felt a little embarrassed to be thought of as cute. It didn’t fit with his image. Not at all. He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to convince Nicholas otherwise.

“You must be blind,” Seiji couldn’t help but say, even though he knew he should just shut up and let Nicholas think as he pleased. Likely he’d said it because Nicholas’s sure and serious face made him want to argue with him. It was a gut reaction.

“Fishing for compliments?” Nicholas teased, and Seiji was done with the conversation. He turned, readying for bed, though there wasn’t much more he could do on that front beyond climbing into the actual bed. “Don’t pout,” Nicholas exhaled a small laugh, which earned him a scathing glare.

“I wasn’t fishing for anything, least of all for you to say—,” he spun on Nicholas, abandoning his feigned disinterest. “And I don’t pout.”

“You do,” Nicholas said. “And that’s cute, too.”

“You assume I find being called cute a compliment,” Seiji said, in a tone which implied that he  _did not_  take it as one. He didn’t like the insinuation that he wanted or needed validation from Nicholas.

“Being called cute  _is_  a compliment,” Nicholas insisted. “And that’s what you are. Adorable.”

“Adorable?” Seiji asked skeptically. “I’m nothing of the sort—nor do I want to be,” he’d said the same thing to Aiden weeks ago. Only, he thought he may have meant it more then.

“Hey, do you still want me to kiss you?” Nicholas asked, and it seemed out of nowhere to Seiji, throwing him further off stride. Nicholas was exceptional at doing that to him.

“Do I—? Yes,” he answered appallingly truthful, then made it worse by saying, “obviously.”

“See?” Nicholas smiled, creeping back into Seiji’s space. “You’re the weirdest mix of contradictions I’ve ever met. Like right now you’re full of shit, but at the same time being totally honest. It just makes it all cuter.”

“I’m done listening to you,” a lie. “Shut up and kiss me,” an honest request.

“I can make that happen,” Nicholas said, only seconds away form him now.

“I’m waiting,” Seiji told him, unimpressed. “I haven’t got all—,”

Nicholas’s warm mouth swallowed the rest of Seiji’s words, but he wasn’t about to complain. He might later, though, just to be difficult. But he had absolutely no desire to be difficult in this moment, in Nicholas’s arms. He wanted to be everything Nicholas wanted him to be as he kissed him. Wanted Nicholas to keep kissing him, to never stop. Nicholas didn’t show any indication of stopping, as he kissed Seiji harder, deeper, more forcefully every second. Seiji clung to him, letting him set the pace.

He’d never known before what to do with kissing. It had always seemed a weird concept to him—smashing mouthes together. How was that meant to be anything other than unpleasant and unhygienic? He could count the number of times he’d kissed anyone on one hand, and there was a good reason for that: he’d found the reality of kissing, if anything,  _worse_ than the idea of it. But with Nicholas…he’d never thought he’d like kissing, and he’d never thought he’d like Nicholas. Yet, as he felt Nicholas collect his lip between his teeth and pull, almost playfully, a sound tumbled from him that he’d have sworn couldn’t have come from  _him_  if he hadn’t felt it escape. Kissing Nicholas was more pleasurable than anything had ever led him to believe kissing could be, especially combined with the overwhelming sensations of Nicholas’s scent enveloping him, and his hands burning into Seiji’s back, his neck, his cheek, as they traveled from place to place. Though, Seiji noticed with amusement, his hands didn’t travel nearly so frantically or so  _far_  as they had the night before.

“What’re you smiling about?” Seiji felt the words on his lips as much as he heard them.

“Don’t mumble,” Seiji replied, he himself mumbling against Nicholas’s mouth.

“Fine,” Nicholas pulled away, voice sounding too clear and too loud. Seiji missed the pressure against his lips as soon as it was gone, but Nicholas had already moved on. “What,” he asked, kissing Seiji’s neck as gently as anything Seiji had ever received. “Are,” he asked, kissing lower down, near the junction of throat and shoulder. “You,” now Seiji felt a soft kiss pressed to the curve of his shoulder, right at the collar of his shirt. “Smiling,” a finger dipped that collar down further, and Seiji thought to bat it away or scold its owner for stretching out his shirt. But he didn’t stop Nicholas as he pulled the collar more and more, or as he kissed against the skin from which he’d just peeled the fabric away. “About?” Nicholas finished, exhaling a cool breath against Seiji’s chest.

“I don’t remember,” Seiji breathed in all honesty. His eyes fluttered closed as Nicholas kissed the tender spot of skin he’d worked thoroughly only twenty-four hours before.

“Wrong answer,” Nicholas said, nipping at the sensitive bruise.

“Everything, then,” Seiji offered, and Nicholas returned to sweet kisses. But in another moment, Seiji felt teeth and tongue coming back out to glide and scrape against skin and his eyes snapped open. “None of that,” he said sternly. “I’ve just had a shower and I don’t need you slobbering on me, thank you.”

“Slobbering?” Nicholas asked, making a face as he abandoned Seiji’s chest, letting his shirt’s elasticity try to snap back to shape. “Really, Seiji, that’s so not a sexy thing to say in the middle of a make out.”

“Hm,” Seiji said with little sympathy. “We seem to have ruined the mood again, haven’t we?”

“This one’s on you,” Nicholas scoffed.

“You’re the one who was planning on salivating all over me.”

“Fuck,” Nicholas groaned. “I take it back, slobbering is way better than salivating.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Seiji said, but already his mind was drifting away from their conversation on appropriately sexy ways to express that Nicholas had fully intended to lick him, in all practical meaning of the word. His lips still felt the absence of Nicholas’s against them, and he distractedly brought a hand up to press against them instead. It didn’t help recapture the sensation of the urgent pressure and heat from before, but it brought his attention to the alarming fact that his lips hardly felt properly like  _his_  lips. Startled, Seiji bit experimentally at his bottom lip. It felt swollen and sensitive, but he was relieved to find that, despite feeling unnatural to his fingers, his lips were still conclusively his.

 _“Fuck,”_  Nicholas said again. “I take back implying you aren’t sexy, too.” Seiji’s eyes widened, realizing that Nicholas hadn’t moved, that one of his hands still rested lightly on Seiji’s hip as he stood close in front of him. Seiji went red, releasing his lip from between his teeth, but it was too late. Nicholas had seen. Of course he’d seen, he’d been watching the whole time. Seiji had just been too distracted, wishing Nicholas would kiss him again, to notice him.

“It’s your fault,” Seiji sneered, but far from discouraging Nicholas, the accusation seemed to delight him. “My mouth feels all wrong now,” he tried again, scowling, “all because of you.”

“I know,” Nicholas laughed, pulling Seiji’s hand from where it had been hovering uselessly at his face. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he said, brushing his lips to Seiji’s so lightly it did nothing to alleviate the desperate tingling.

“Just go to bed,” Seiji said, shoving Nicholas towards the bright blue curtain adorned with ducks. “Before you really do slobber on me. Or kiss my lips off.” Nicholas laughed his agreement, and soon he was lumbering about, getting ready for bed. Seiji was grateful he hadn’t pushed the issue because, truth be told, Seiji thought he would have gladly let Nicholas do either one of those things, if he’d cared to try again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally made Seiji and Aiden friends oops?


	7. Chapter 7

Saturday mornings were a busy time for Seiji. He went through his usual stretches, balance exercises, and workout, and after that had a sizable chunk of time dedicated to training with Coach Dmytro. It wasn’t until noon that he was given the rest of the day for himself, and, usually, he enjoyed recovering in his room with a book or homework or, very rarely, a nap. Aiden had dragged him shopping two weeks ago, which had made his day feel longer than ever. Today would be different. Today he fully intended to use his time the way he wanted. But on his way back to the dorms he passed by the other members of the Kings Row fencing team. Nicholas looked about to say something when Aiden cheerily called out.

“Seiji! We’re heading to the clubhouse, you should join us for some team bonding!”

“Sounds tiresome,” Seiji said, but Aiden was determined.

“If by tiresome you mean fun,” he said jovially. “Come on, you won’t really sit this one out, will you?”

“I—,” he wanted to explain that he didn’t like to spend his Saturdays with other people, doing things. But he saw Nicholas from the corner of his eye and relented. “All right, I’ll be there. But I’ve got to change first,” he told Aiden, who gave him the smallest wink. “Because I’ve been fencing for hours, and I’m covered in sweat,” he clarified with narrowed eyes.

“You all go ahead,” Aiden said breezily to the three boys behind them, hooking his arm through Seiji’s. Seiji looked down at their linked arms tiredly. He really hadn’t meant to befriend Aiden, and he was too physical for Seiji’s liking. But it was hardly worth the effort to fight it. “I’ll wait for Seiji to clean up and we’ll meet you there.”

“No,” Nicholas said, sounding oddly menacing. “You go,  _I’ll_  wait for Seiji.”

“I don’t need  _anyone_  to wait for me,” Seiji objected, “I know how to get there.” But Nicholas wasn’t listening. Stormy faced and intent, he was already pulling Seiji roughly from Aiden’s grasp.

“Well, alright then, bossy pants,” Aiden trilled, mouth quirking up in a smile meant for Seiji.  _You’re welcome_ , that smile seemed to say. “We’ll see you there in, what, an hour?”

“Yes,” Seiji said, a little confused as Nicholas pulled him on towards the dorms, hand still clamped tightly over his upper arm. “See you then.”

The walk back to their room was exceptionally awkward and weird. Nicholas seemed angry, but it was a mystery to Seiji why that was. And Nicholas refused to let go of him, or slow down their pace. Seiji had tried to ask why he was so mad, but Nicholas had ignored him. When they were to their room, Nicholas let go of Seiji at last.  _After_  he’d practically thrown him through the door.

“ _What_  is your problem?” Seiji asked, patience having finally run out. He dropped his bag to the floor, kicking it out of the way as he advanced on his petulant roommate. “If you’re mad to be missing time at the clubhouse, you should have gone without me. Dragging me across campus like a mad man and  _shoving_  me into my own room is incredibly rude manners, Nicholas Cox, and I won’t stand to be treated that way.”

“How come Aiden’s all over you?” Nicholas demanded, completely ignoring Seiji. No surprises there, the boy was terrible at listening.

“Come again?” Seiji asked, trying to understand why Nicholas was asking about Aiden at this particular moment.

“You let Aiden hang off you just now,” Nicholas glowered at him.

“I did not,” Seiji started, needing no more reason to object immediately than the fact that Nicholas had said it. Contradicting him was  _always_  Seiji’s gut instinct.

“You did.” Nicholas was looming closer.

“I did—,” he remembered Aiden’s arm looping through his. “Oh. Well? What of it?”

Nicholas, once again, completely ignored him. That, on its own, wouldn’t have been particularly noteworthy. But what Nicholas gave instead of an explanation  _was_  of note. Nicholas grabbed Seiji’s arm again, yanking him hard to him, then caught his face and kissed him roughly. Seiji gasped in surprise, but more at the twist of desire and pleasure in his stomach than at the kiss itself. He had to remind himself that he was mad at Nicholas. But, really, that could be demonstrated later because he was already melting into Nicholas, into this hard kiss tinged with feelings meaner than kisses ought to be made of. But it felt so good that Seiji didn’t mind.

He pulled his arm free of Nicholas’s bruising grip, but Nicholas’s hand just relocated to his hip, his grip hard enough to dent fingerprints into the skin there instead. Seiji knotted his freed hand in Nicholas’s hair, no gentler than Nicholas was being with him. A sound like a growl came from Nicholas when Seiji did this, making him curl his fingers even tighter. Seiji met Nicholas’s vicious kiss with equal fervor, his own frustrations taken out in this clashing of teeth and lips and tongue. Nicholas bit him, harder than he ever had before. Or maybe Seiji’s lips were still sensitive from the night before. No matter the reason, he might have flinched, just slightly, but it must have been enough for Nicholas to notice, because he let go almost instantaneously, kissing Seiji gently at the lip he’d just bitten. Seiji felt the hand at his side loosen to a reasonable pressure, too, and the arm at his back, crushing him to Nicholas, let up enough to give Seiji breathing room.

Seiji realized that the fight was over. Because it  _had_  been more of a fight than anything. A better fight than the two of them had ever gotten into before, but a fight nonetheless. He found himself relieved too, that it was over. He expected Nicholas to continue with softened kisses and gentler touches. He was disappointed.

“Did you seduce  _him,_  too?” Nicholas asked, harsh and guttural, and Seiji jerked away, both at the question and the foreign, angry tone Nicholas had asked it in. The fight wasn’t over after all. As Seiji backed away from Nicholas with a snarl growing on his face, he registered the guilt and regret flit across Nicholas’s own face. Seiji didn’t stop backing until his legs bumped against the frame of his bed.

“Maybe I should have,” Seiji said, unsure why  _this_  was the argument he’d decided to pull out. “I doubt he would have treated me like this. I doubt he would have asked me something so insulting after doing all  _that_. Aiden’s a lot of things,” Seiji laughed, but it wasn’t a nice laugh. Not pleasant or happy. “He’s flippant and dramatic and lazy but he’s decent. Which is more than I can say for you. Because decent people aren’t so unnecessarily cruel. Decent people don’t kiss you like they’re trying to hurt you. Decent people don’t assume the worst of you and  _punish_  you for it just because they’re—what? Jealous?” Seiji didn’t look at Nicholas as he spoke. Didn’t want to see the remorse in his eyes. Didn’t want to be placated or comforted. He wanted to be mad.

“Seiji,” Nicholas sounded desperate. “I’m sorry. Please, I’m sorry for what I did—I didn’t mean to hurt you. I—,” but it was Seiji’s turn to ignore Nicholas. He slammed the bathroom door and turned on the shower before he’d even undressed, just to drown out Nicholas’s voice, still speaking in the other room.

Seiji took a long shower. He used every last drop of hot water, and his fingers had begun to wrinkle when he finally turned off the faucet and reached for his towel, drying himself sufficiently before stepping onto the bathroom floor so as not to drip everywhere, a curtesy Nicholas never returned. The mirror was fogged, and his reflection in it was blurry and distorted, like an impressionistic painting. If he were feeling dramatic, he might think that it reflected his feelings aptly. But he was feeling drained, not dramatic.

Seiji turned away from the mirror and reached for his fresh clothes, only to realize that he didn’t have any. He hadn’t had the time or clarity of mind to prepare a change of clothes before he’d taken his shower. And he was  _not_  about to put on his previous outfit, sweaty from fencing all morning. He eyed the door, weighing the likelihood that Nicholas was still out there. Seiji decided it was low. He’d taken what must have been forty minutes. And if Nicholas had any sense, he’d have seen that Seiji didn’t want to talk. Between those two reasons, Seiji thought Nicholas must have gone off to the clubhouse by now

Slowly, Seiji opened the door. Nicholas wasn’t anywhere in sight. He eyed the duck curtain suspiciously, but there was no way to tell what was behind it. He’d just have to go out and hope—

His toe nudged against something soft and Seiji looked down, sure that he couldn’t have dropped anything here. He’d kicked his sports bag, but that wasn’t soft and—

Clothes.  _His_  clothes, neatly folded, placed carefully just outside the bathroom door. Seiji stared down at the pile, topped with tidily rolled socks and underwear, in wonder. Nicholas must have put it there for him. He’d known Seiji hadn’t brought any clothes in, so he’d gotten them all ready. Seiji thought about stepping over the pile. He considered being spiteful and petty. Of leaving these here for Nicholas to see later and wearing something else instead. But he was already cold from opening the bathroom door, and he didn’t much fancy digging around for things in his towel. So he retrieved the stack and retreated back into the steamy room, pulling on the clothes Nicholas had picked for him. He frowned at the coffee colored cowl neck sweater as he tugged it over his head. He hadn’t worn it since he’d gotten it with Aiden. He didn’t need it, or any of the other things they’d picked out, anymore.

It was clear to him now that dating Nicholas was a bad idea. And yet, he wondered if Nicholas had picked this sweater because he’d wanted to see Seiji in it or if it was coincidence. Annoyed at the train of thought, Seiji exited the bathroom and stormed to the duck curtain, ready to dissuade those types of thoughts. Nicholas wouldn’t be behind it, he was sure of it. Who would wait forty minutes just to get yelled at?

“You found me,” Nicholas laughed nervously, sitting cross legged on his bed, unmade as always. Given the state of Nicholas’s rumbled hair and clothes, Seiji thought it possible that he’d been in it at some point during Seiji’s shower. Seiji also saw that his faded black shirt had gotten bunched around his middle. He frowned at the inviting stretch of skin revealed because of it. This was all the fault of shirts like this one, of skin peeking out just as it was now, of Nicholas’s inability to put on shirts correctly and  _keep_  them that way. Nicholas followed his gaze and, for once, hurriedly rearranged the shirt.

“I’m sorry,” Nicholas said tentatively, watching Seiji closely, like he expected Seiji to interrupt or walk away. Seiji considered doing both. But he found himself crossing his arms and hardening his face instead, not moving, not speaking. “Are you…okay?”

“Fine,” Seiji said tersely, then saw Nicholas’s eyes glance to his arm, to his hip. “You didn’t hurt me,” Seiji said, and Nicholas’s face immediately lost a good deal of tension, lightening in relief. “I only said that you acted like you wanted to.” Nicholas looked as if Seiji had just punched him in the stomach.  _He deserves it,_  Seiji thought, but the way Nicholas had instantly adjusted his hold on Seiji when he’d flinched came back to him. Like he hadn’t meant to, didn’t want to, make Seiji flinch. Make him hurt.

“I shouldn’t have been so rough with you,” Nicholas said, looking up at Seiji from his bed, as unmoving as Seiji was. As if he worried Seiji would leave if he shifted, spooked away like a wild animal from sudden movement. “I’m sorry, I won’t ever—I mean, obviously I won’t do it again, you’d stop me sooner. But I don’t  _want_  to do it again, is the point. I wish I hadn’t done it at all. I’d take it back and try again if I could. I’m really, really sorry. For all of it. But I—,” he gulped down a huge breath, “I just want you to know that I  _didn’t_  want to hurt you. I’d never want to. Not like that. I know I’ve punched you before,” another awkward laugh, “but that was, you know, different. I know I was stupid and mean today, but I’m not…I made a mistake. But that’s not me.” He looked at Seiji with pleading eyes and Seiji felt himself cracking. Looking into his eyes it was obvious that he was sorry. But what got Seiji was what Nicholas’s eyes were pleading for. Not forgiveness. Not another chance. Not understanding. All he wanted was for Seiji to see that he wasn’t an abusive and malicious person who wanted to hurt him.

Seiji sat on on the bed next to Nicholas, stiff and hesitant at first, but as Nicholas’s stunned look morphed into one of his brilliant smiles, Seiji slumped against him, body relaxing into Nicholas’s side and head resting on his shoulder. That damned smile could move mountains.

“If you hadn’t accused me of…of  _beguiling_  Aiden, I wouldn’t have been so mad,” Seiji told Nicholas.

“I’m really sorry,” Nicholas said, bringing a hand to run through Seiji’s hair. “That was uncalled for. And none of my business. I just—I got so mad seeing Aiden talk with you so easily and touch you like it was nothing. I know I have no right to be upset over things like that, even if we were—but I wasn’t thinking.”

“A common ailment for you,” Seiji murmured.

“Yeah, no kidding. I’ve got a mean jealous streak when it comes to you. I’ve let it get the best of me a couple times now, and I’m sorry for that. I won’t let it happen again.”

“I doubt that,” Seiji let out a single huff of laughter.

“But I won’t treat you so bad again, okay? I won’t kiss you like that anymore.”

“After all the trouble I’ve gone through to get you to kiss me?” Seiji asked, aghast. “I think not, thank you. I’m not done with you yet, Nicholas.” He’d thought he was, but here he was again. His feelings were inconclusive. He still needed to test them, to date Nicholas and see what he wanted. “And the kissing wasn’t the problem, it was the pulling and the shoving and the ignoring and the way you asked me about Aiden that I didn’t like.”

“Oh,” was all Nicholas could come up with, but Seiji could feel his shock from the way he forgot to breath, and then his delight by the way his entire body relaxed and opened, the way his fingers combing through Seiji’s hair paused momentarily before continuing with a natural, comfortable way about the gesture that had been missing before. “But I thought, when I was kissing you, I hurt you, didn’t I?”

“You stopped before I could even decide if it really hurt or not,” Seiji said. “You stopped when you thought I didn’t like it, and that counts for a lot. Too bad you ruined it shortly thereafter.”

“I can really kiss you again?”

Seiji pulled away from Nicholas, getting to his feet again. “You may right now, if you’d like, but it can’t be for long. We’re already late to the clubhouse, I’m not sure they’ll even still be there when we go.”

“They will be,” Nicholas said, standing too, with a stretch. Seiji’s eyes fixed on the hem of his shirt as he did so, embarrassingly well trained to search for skin when Nicholas stretched. This time, he wasn’t disappointed. “Just a small kiss, then,” Nicholas said as he brought his arms back down from the stretch, resting them on Seiji’s shoulders instead of dropping them all the way to his sides. Seiji returned his gaze to Nicholas’s face, finding the smile there as welcome a sight as the one his eyes had just come from. Seiji rested his own hands at Nicholas’s hips, tempted to slip up underneath the shirt again, but they were on a schedule, so he refrained. True to his word, Nicholas’s kiss was small but sweet, tongue only barely darting into Seiji’s mouth, and lips gentle against his. When he pulled away, Seiji sighed the tiniest bit. Nicholas smiled, whispered two words into Seiji’s ear, “so cute,” and then his arms were gone from Seiji’s shoulders.

As they walked back across campus, Seiji’s mind kept returning to the neat bundle of clothes deliberately left for him at the bathroom door. “I’m curious,” he said, drawing Nicholas’s attention. “Why did you choose this sweater?”

“I’ve never seen you wear it,” Nicholas shrugged. “And I wanted to. See you in it, that is. I thought it’d look good.”

“And?” Seiji asked, fully aware of the irony of him fishing for compliments now considering the fuss he’d made over the accusation of doing the same thing last night.

“I was right, it does. You look really good in it.”

“Good,” Seiji said with a satisfied nod. “I got it for you.”

“You’re serious?” Nicholas asked, so startled that Seiji laughed instead of flushing at the confirmation of a confession that Nicholas obviously hadn’t quite believed, despite that Seiji had already as much as admitted it before now.

“Entirely serious. I also got it because I liked it,” Seiji said, examining his sleeve. “But Aiden only let me get it because he said you’d like it.”

“So, you and Aiden?” Nicholas asked, suspiciously innocent.

“He’s nosy, ridiculous, and frivolous. But he can be helpful, too,” Seiji said, and Nicholas nodded, though Seiji noticed his smile wasn’t quite right. Seiji sighed impatiently. It was time they end this bout, and Seiji had one last move to prompt Nicholas into committing to a final lunge. “You know there’s an easy fix to your jealousy over Aiden,” he offered with his best attempt at a coy look. Nicholas stared at him. “A way to stop your pointless, not to mention offensive, worrying about me seducing other people,” he prodded, losing subtlety  _fast_. Nicholas got it this time.

“Oh,” he said, eyes widening. Seiji wasn’t sure what that  _oh_  meant, what that look Nicholas was giving him meant. And, again, he was rendered terrified. He didn’t want to know what it meant, was scared to know. Adrenaline surged through him and he suddenly needed to get away from this situation. He needed to run.

“Race you,” Seiji said, feet starting to pound down the expanse of ground between the wall they’d just climbed and the woods they needed to reach.

“What? Hey!” Nicholas gave a laugh of delight, and Seiji glanced back to see Nicholas propel himself from the wall with explosive speed. “That’s no fair!” Nicholas called, already closing the gap Seiji’s head start had created. Nicholas was unfairly fast. But Seiji pushed ahead harder, just about to pass into the cover of trees when Nicholas hurtled into him, knocking him off his feet and to the ground, skidding them both past the imaginary finish line and into the cover of trees.

“You cheated,” Nicholas said and Seiji grunted, rolling over to look up at Nicholas, trying to convey with a look how unamused Seiji was with his antics.

“So did you,” Seiji observed.

“No, I won.”

“You call  _this_  winning?” Seiji asked, shoving at Nicholas only enough to emphasize that he was there, above Seiji, trapping him against the ground. Nicholas considered, but only briefly.

“Yeah, actually, this is exactly what I’d call winning,” Nicholas said, brushing a strand of hair out of Seiji’s face. A strand his flying tackle had knocked loose in the first place. Seiji tried not to let Nicholas get to him, but the soft adoration in his voice and the fierce wanting behind his eyes left Seiji feeling oddly pleased, even as he lay in the dirt and grass.

“I’d have won,” Seiji said, directing himself back on track and away from Nicholas’s distracting presence over him. “If you hadn’t collided into me, I would have won. You only did it because you’re a sore loser.”

“I could have outrun you easily,” Nicholas taunted, and it rankled Seiji all the more to know that it was probably true. “But I didn’t want to overtake you, I wanted to talk to you.”

“Surely there are better ways to do that than to assault me.” Seiji’s heart was beating too fast, and it flatly refused to settle down. He wanted to run again, but Nicholas’s smile would have held him in place, even if his bodyweight weren’t already immobilizing him.

“I wanted to ask you out,” Nicholas said and a hot, tingling sensation spread from Seiji’s fast beating heart through his stomach and his limbs and his neck, leaving him feeling too hot in his sweater, which was a rarity. “But you ran away, so I had to catch you.”

“You caught me.”

“Yeah,” Nicholas looked far too pleased with himself. “I did. So will you go out with me? Be my boyfriend and end my jealous suffering?”

Seiji smiled. He’d won. “I will,” Seiji said, after a moment of feigned deliberation. He’d intended to say more, to lay out rules and guidelines, but Nicholas unwittingly cut him off.

“Thank you,” he said softly, which seemed to Seiji a weird thing to say at this moment, but he didn’t point it out because he didn’t want Nicholas getting defensive. Nicholas looked so perfect just then, Seiji didn’t want to ruin it. He remembered a dream he’d had only nights ago with Nicholas and a grassy landscape. In the dream, however, it had been Nicholas pulling Seiji down on top of  _him_. As it was, Seiji was the one flat on his back, the grass beneath him tickling at his neck. Something occurred to him and he paled.

“If you got grass stains on my new sweater, I swear I’ll never forgive you,” Seiji said, scowling at Nicholas with a burning accusation. Nicholas had pushed him down none to gently, and Seiji thought he remembered hitting ground decently hard, skidding even. He shouldn’t have allowed it. He didn’t know how he could have stopped it, but he shouldn’t have allowed it anyway.

“Don’t worry,” Nicholas said, grinning down at him, “I know how to get those out.” Seiji would have snorted or made a biting comment, but Nicholas didn’t give him the chance, pressing a kiss against his lips, soft and careful. Then he kissed Seiji’s mouth open and Seiji forgot about the potential grass stains. For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You’d think I could end it here, wouldn’t you? You thought wrong. There’s still shit to fuck up I’m not done lmao


	8. Chapter 8

“Took you long enough,” Aiden said when Seiji and Nicholas finally arrived, but he didn’t sound surprised at all.

“Dude, whose Switch?” Nicholas asked, goggling at the small game console propped on the coffee table, not acknowledging Aiden at all.

“Aiden’s,” Eugene answered. “Cool, right? I’m kicking our mighty captain’s ass at Smash.” As Nicholas wandered over to the couch where Eugene sat, Harvard on the floor in front of it, Aiden gave Seiji a knowing grin and beckoned him over to the corner of the room he’d set up in. Seiji glanced at Nicholas, wrestling a red remote from Eugene’s hands. He seemed properly distracted, so Seiji answered Aiden’s call.

“Unless I’m much mistaken,” Aiden whispered so low Seiji had to lean in close to hear, “you owe me a thank you.” Seiji frowned, until old words clicked into place  _Thank me properly when Nick is yours._  Aiden had said it that first day he’d helped Seiji. “Don’t look so surprised, little lamb, I was the one who gave you the final push, after all. I’m honestly insulted you thought I wouldn’t notice that the two of you managed to get together. You’re over an hour late, your lips are raw as hell, and you should have seen the look Nick gave me when you walked in just now.” Seiji resisted the impulse to cover his mouth, scowling at Aiden instead.

“Nicholas ignored you when we came in.”

“Not at all,” Aiden laughed. “He looked at me all smug and self-satisfied, the little shit. As if I had any interest in you. No offense.”

“None taken. The feeling’s mutual.”

“But it worked, didn’t it? You’re dating?

“Your final push,” Seiji repeated, several things clicking into place. “You did it on purpose. You  _meant_  to make Nicholas jealous.” That was why he’d smiled at Seiji as Nicholas had dragged him away.

“You’re welcome.”

“You caused a lot of trouble.”

“Not too much, I’m sure, or you wouldn’t be wearing that sweater and Nicholas wouldn’t be smirking at me like he just stole the last cupcake from right under my nose.”

“I suppose it did all work out for the best,” Seiji admitted. “Then, thank you. For your…help.” Aiden was clearly surprised that Seiji had actually thanked him, but he recovered quickly

“That looked painful,” Aiden said gleefully. “I can see now how you got Nick. Even  _I_  am tempted to call you adorable right now. Like a grouchy cat showing some affection.”

“Of all the ridiculous things you’ve called me,  _adorable_ is definitely the worst. Don’t ever so much as think it again. It makes me sick.”

“That’s only for Nick, hm?” Aiden laughed, and his hand was coming in for what Seiji assumed was a head pat or a hair ruffle. He caught it out of the air and tossed it down.

“ _That’s_ only for Nicholas, too,” Seiji told him, startling Aiden for the second time in as many seconds.

“Alright,  _adorable_  and head touching are off limits.” Aiden said, entirely amused. “And yesterday you were telling me you didn’t want to date him.”

“I still don’t know about that,” Seiji said, as his attention was straying over to Nicholas, consumed in a rousing game of Super Smash Brothers.

“You’re not serious, are you?” Aiden asked, incredulous. Whatever he saw on Seiji’s face made him groan. “You are. Then keep me updated on the verdict, would you?”

“Have I really got any choice?” Seiji asked. “You’re too nosy to leave me alone until I do.”

“Awe, you really get me, Seiji. And here I thought you didn’t want to be friends.”

“I don’t.” Seiji said flatly, but Aiden had merrily wrapped an arm around his, pulling him over to the small couch. Nicholas looked up as they approached, eyes zoning in on the contact between them. Seiji saw a flash of that same storm he’d displayed earlier, but it cleared as soon as it had come and Nicholas smiled at him, winking.

“You two morons realize I’ve got extra controllers, right?” Aiden asked, watching Eugene and Nicholas fighting over the controller again. Neither of them had bothered challenging Harvard for his blue one.

“You’re kidding,” Eugene said, releasing his claim on the tiny remote.

“You could have mentioned that earlier,” Nicholas grumbled.

“Sure I could have,” Aiden said airily, pushing Seiji down on the couch before going to fish through his bag, presumably for more controllers. The couch was slightly too small for three teenage boys, which meant Seiji was cramped in close to Nicholas, stuck between him and the arm rest. Despite there being room for Nicholas to adjust slightly closer to Eugene, he didn’t. And Seiji didn’t mind.

“I want the pink one!” Eugene called and Aiden tossed it to him.

“Seiji, catch,” Aiden said, chucking the remaining green stick at Seiji, who caught it, but only barely. Nicholas snickered beside him and Seiji elbowed him in the side.

“Harvard, go to eight player smash so I can join too,” Aiden said, settling on the floor next to Harvard. Seiji had never played the game before, and he became quickly frustrated with his ineptitude at it. Nicholas made it worse, ribbing him at each loss. Eugene won the vast majority of the time, his duck and dog duo dominating every fight.

“You’re really mad,” Nicholas observed, an hour later as Seiji leaned forward, gnashing his teeth almost as fervently as he was the buttons.

“All there is to this game is pressing buttons,” Seiji growled in frustration as his fighter—Sheik, this time—was pelted with cans when he tried to recover from falling off the map. Out of lives, Seiji fell back against the couch to watch the other four duke it out. “It’s a terrible judgment of skill. What’s the point to it?”

“Uh, the point is  _fun_ ,” Eugene said as he used his irritating smash on Aiden.

“How is this fun?” Seiji asked sharply.

“You’re just upset because you suck at it,” Nicholas laughed. “You’re really terrible.”

“Don’t feel too bad,” Harvard said, setting his control down, second one out of the battle. “I’m mostly terrible at video games too. You’ll get better as you’re forced to play more.”

“Great,” Seiji’s flat response only got laughter from the rest of the guys.

“Just wait until we play Mario Party,” Aiden chirped. “That’s the one I get upset over. I cried once when Harvard made a rookie mistake and we lost because of it.”

“I just don’t see why you all want to play games that you’re bad at or that make you mad,” glancing at Aiden, “or cry.”

“It’s the human condition,”Nicholas deadpanned.

“Be that as it may, I’m officially withdrawing from the competition.”

“Then give your remote here,” Eugene said, holding out a hand without looking up from the tiny screen. Seiji gave it to him, but before Eugene pulled his arm back, Nicholas latched onto it, preventing him from returning his hand to his own remote.

“Fuck, Nick, let  _go_ ,” Eugene bellowed, flailing.

“You don’t need any more advantages. You’re the last person the full remote should go to. Get him, Aiden!” Nicholas gasped through laughter, still clinging to Eugene’s arm. Eugene screamed louder still as Princess Peach hip bumped Duck Hunt off the map. Eugene fought valiantly with one hand, but couldn’t maneuver himself to safety.

“You assholes!”

“Sorry, Gene, but you walked into that one.”

“Aiden,” Seiji said, leaning down to talk with him as Eugene and Nicholas wrestled. “Nicholas is completely defenseless. He’s only got one life left, too.”

“I like the way you think,” Aiden grinned, flouncing over to Snake and launching a full aerial attack.

“Hey!” Nicholas screeched, realizing too late what had happened. “You betrayed me! Aiden what the hell man? We were partners!”

“Sorry, Nick,” Aiden shrugged, finishing off Eugene’s still motionless character, returned one last time from death. “It’s the human condition.” The match was won, entirely unfairly, and Aiden turned the console off. “It’s my first win of the day, we’re stopping while I’m ahead.”

“You’re all dicks,” Eugene groused.

“I can’t believe my own boyfriend conspired against me,” Nicholas stood, rolling his shoulders and stretching, though his shirt stayed stubbornly in place. Eugene’s bad temper fell away as he sprang to his feet with an  _aha!_

“I knew you were into him, man, I  _said_  so!” Eugene was triumphant. “When the hell did this happen, then? And why didn’t you  _tell_  me?” He pestered, but his smile was large and enthusiastic.

“Nobody likes a know-it-all,” Nicholas said snootily, then he and Eugene both burst out laughing. “Yeah man, you were right, I should have listened to you.” They were very chummy, and Seiji felt stirrings of jealously himself, watching as they knocked shoulders and laughed easily. He and Nicholas were never like that.

 _Jealousy,_  Seiji thought, silently considering the emotion as they made their way back Kings Row proper,  _I’m jealous over Nicholas’s friendship with someone else._  He filed that insight away, building his case for liking Nicholas. So far, it was filling out much faster than his case against liking Nicholas.

But there they’d only just begun. Seiji was sure Nicholas would provide him more reasons to leave him than date him. There was still time before he could be sure, before he’d have to commit.


	9. Chapter 9

“A date?” Seiji asked skeptically as Nicholas gave him his best enthusiastic puppy smile, nodding eagerly.

“Yeah, don’t you think?”

“I’m busy,” Seiji said, ready to turn back to his work. But Nicholas’s face fell so fast and with such obvious and genuine hurt that Seiji couldn’t do it. Exasperated, he shut his computer. “Fine,” he said, and, at once, Nicholas was happy again.

“Are you sure?” Nicholas asked, but he was too adorably hopeful for Seiji to answer with anything but a yes.

“I expect you’ll pout if I say no.”

“Is there anywhere you’d like to go?” Nicholas seemed perfectly happy with Seiji’s backhanded yes. Seiji was surprised that Nicholas had asked him where he wanted to go. It was downright considerate of the oaf. Seiji thought on it, wondering where he could drag Nicholas that would break him. Somewhere Nicholas would hate so much it would be clear how incompatible the two of them were. Somewhere that Seiji liked enough that he’d actually care if Nicholas hated it.

“Actually…” Seiji pulled out his phone and brought up his calendar. He felt Nicholas watching him as a smile grew on his face. “I have tickets for the ballet tonight,” Seiji said, looking up at a baffled Nicholas. “I have season tickets,” he explained. “But I haven’t made it out to The Capital in months. I keep forfeiting my tickets because it’s such a hassle to get out lately. But it’s  _Swan Lake_ , and I’d really like to go.” And he did, only he’d been too busy to think he could make it. And, though he didn’t mind going alone, a ballet was better enjoyed with someone beside you. He was sure Nicholas would hate it.

“Season tickets to the ballet? Seiji, that’s so fucking  _posh_  of you, what the heck. Sometimes I almost forget, but you really are a trust fund baby, aren’t you?” Nicholas laughed, and Seiji went red. He hadn’t meant to sound like a rich kid, but sometimes he forgot that something as simple as season tickets to the ballet betrayed his wealth to someone like Nicholas. “Not a criticism,” Nicholas said, seeing Seiji’s expression. “Yeah, alright. Let’s go to the ballet. When is it?”

“7:30,” Seiji replied, “and the bus will take an hour to get there.”

“No wonder you don’t go often,” Nicholas joked. “We’d better get moving, then. You shower first,” he offered, and when Seiji stared at him in surprise he grinned. “Unless you’re gonna be slow about it.”

“I’m going,” Seiji said quickly, standing and making his way to the bathroom before Nicholas could think better of his odd chivalry.

An hour later, Seiji waited for Nicholas to finish getting ready. They needed to leave within thirty minutes to make it on time. Seiji started pacing, anxiously readjusting his tie and straightening his jacket, though already they were impeccable. Perhaps taking Nicholas to  _Swan Lake_  was a bad idea. What if he had terrible etiquette and talked through it all? Or what if he fell asleep and, god forbid,  _snored_  during the entire ballet? And what if he really were bored out of his mind and hated it and Seiji had to listen to him complain? Seiji shook his head, that was the whole point. For Nicholas to hate it and for Seiji to see how there was no way Nicholas could fit into his life in a larger way than  _annoying roommate._

The bathroom door cracked open and Nicholas stepped out, effectively distracting Seiji from his thoughts. Nicholas looked good. Plain and simple, black slacks and a white button down, free of grass stains. Seiji smiled at the outfit. He looked a lot like he had once in a dream, only with his shirt considerably less wrinkled than it had been then. And his hair was neatly swept back, as Seiji was sure he’d never seen it before. Nicholas grinned, like he knew that Seiji’s appraisal of him was one of admiration.

“Let’s go,” he said, holding his arm out to Seiji as though he were a proper gentleman. Seiji made a face, but he took the arm anyway, which obviously delighted Nicholas.

“You look good, by the way,” Nicholas said as they sat on the bus, right on schedule. Seiji colored, but it was an almost pleasant warmth across his cheeks this time.

“Thank you,” he said, feeling only slightly awkward. Nicholas had never complimented him before for wearing anything that Aiden hadn’t pre-vetted as  _cute_. And Seiji was sure that the evening suit he wore tonight did not count as any such thing. “You look well yourself,” he managed stiffly, after a short pause. Nicholas laughed again, then pulled Seiji closer to him with an arm around his shoulders to kiss him fondly on the side of his forehead, just at his hairline.

“Thanks,” he said, and didn’t move away again for the rest of the bus ride. When they arrived at the bus stop, only a block away from The Capital Theatre, Nicholas easily took his hand and pulled him off the bus, thanking the driver cheerily before hopping off.

“You’re going the wrong way,” Seiji said as Nicholas tugged him along in the completely wrong direction.

“Then lead on,” Nicholas said, and Seiji turned them around. When they arrived at the theatre, Nicholas hurried ahead to get the door for Seiji, which made his heart do the strangest little stutter. He nodded his thanks as he slipped past Nicholas into the familiar little chamber that preceded the grand entrance hall. With practiced efficiency, Seiji moved through the crowded lobby and stepped up to will call.

“I need to pick up tickets, under Katayama,” Seiji said.

“As if I don’t know who you are,” the old woman at the window laughed, “You’ve been coming here long as you could walk.”

“It’s good to see you too, Bertha,” Seiji replied, and she patted his cheek—something only she was permitted to do—before disappearing to retrieve his tickets. Waiting for her, Seiji noticed that Nicholas was no longer with him. Seiji located him with a single sweep across the lobby; Nicholas had been held up at the door, holding it open for a stream of people, smiling all the while. Seiji shook his head, but found that he was smiling too.

“Is that your fella?” Bertha asked, sliding Seiji’s tickets to him. He wasn’t sure how to answer. “Don’t be so surprised,” she gave him a wink, “You look at him the way I look at my wife. He seems a fine young man,” she nodded with approval as Nicholas finally let the door fall shut on an empty sidewalk. “Enjoy the show, Seiji, we’re glad to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back,” Seiji said as Nicholas appeared by his side, greeting Bertha with a charming smile Seiji hadn’t known he possessed. Bertha beamed back.

“And bring your man, anytime,” she winked again, but this time at Nicholas. Nicholas gave her a crisp nod, accented with his own sly wink. Seiji felt rather like the two of them were having some private conversation he couldn’t decipher. Then Nicholas took his arm and led him through the open glass doors into the extravagant entrance hall, as if he had a clue what he was doing.

“ _Swan Lake,_ huh?” Nicholas said, looking at the program he’d just been handed as they passed into the theatre. “I like the theme song from this.”

“Theme song?” Seiji asked, arching a brow. Nicholas shrugged.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. It slaps.”

“I’ll pretend you conveyed your appreciation for one of Tchaikovsky’s most beloved pieces in a more dignified way.”

“You do that. Hey, that’s  _Nutcracker_  man, isn’t it? Damn, guess he had some good music in him.”

“You like him?” Seiji asked, genuinely surprised.

“Yeah! I mean,  _two_  of his ballets got made into Barbie movies, and if that isn’t proof he was good, I don’t know what is.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You’ve never seen  _Barbie in the Nutcracker_ or  _Barbie of Swan Lake?_  We definitely need to fix that.”

“Must we?” Seiji asked, but he was sure Nicholas would have his way.

“Absolutely. They’re classics. Where are we sitting, anyway?” Nicholas asked, peering at the tickets in Seiji’s hands. “Shit, front row? I don’t think I’ve sat front row for anything  _ever_.”

“You’ll like it,” Seiji said without thinking. As they sat, Seiji inwardly groaned.  _You’ll like it._  Why had he said that? Of course Nicholas wouldn’t like it, because watching a ballet from the front row was just as bad as watching from the worst seats in the theatre if you didn’t actually want to see it. And yet, Nicholas hadn’t complained at all about Seiji’s choice of date. He looked through the program, craned his neck to try and see into the orchestra pit, and looked around the grand theatre with interest, eyes snagging on the enormous crystal chandelier overhead.

“Hey, doesn’t it look like it’s hanging off a giant golfball that’s falling halfway through the ceiling?” Nicholas asked, and Seiji scoffed as he looked up.

“It does not—oh,” now that he looked at it… “Yeah, it kind of does, doesn’t it?”

“Completely.” Nicholas laughed, continuing on in his visual exploration of a theatre Seiji had been coming to with his mother since he was three. Seiji wondered what it must be like, seeing it for the first time. He couldn’t remember it. He thought his first memory might be of the cannon they set off during the annual performance of  _The_   _Nutcracker_ , but he couldn’t be sure. He watched Nicholas for signs of his judgment on this place which was, in the end, important to Seiji. But he got distracted and ended up watching Nicholas for the sake of seeing him and nothing more.

His hair was still perfectly styled out of his face, and Seiji followed an impulsive urge before even registering it consciously. Nicholas startled slightly as Seiji’s hand raked through his hair. Still, it looked too tidy. Seiji ran his fingers through it again and again, pulling it gently out of place until Nicholas was grinning lopsidedly at him from under his usual mop of unruly hair.

“What was that for?” He asked, voice brimming with amusement as the bell chimed, calling audience members to sit.

“I like it better this way,” Seiji said before falling back into his red velvet chair. Nicholas took his hand, kissed it once, then settled their joint hands in his lap.

In direct contrast to Seiji’s predictions, Nicholas was perfectly well behaved the entire ballet. No talking, yawning, eye-rolling, or snoring involved. During intermission, which Nicholas had relentlessly referred to as ‘half-time,’ he’d disappeared to the bathroom and returned with a pocket full of fruit candies, one of which he had popped into Seiji’s mouth when the second act commenced, but that was the closest thing to a digression that Nicholas could be accused of making.

“I don’t, like,  _love_  ballet, but that was pretty good,” Nicholas said when the curtain fell a final time and the lights came on, the theatre bursting into chatter and shuffling as all patrons made for the exits.

“It’s not fencing,” Seiji admitted, “but I always enjoy it.”

“You’d have made a pretty balle-menno.”

“A what?”

“A dude ballerina. It’s the technical term.”

“The word you’re looking for is danseur,” Seiji said, fighting a laugh. It burst out of him anyway. “And thanks, I think.”

“Yeah. And thanks for taking me. I had fun.”

“No, thank you for coming.” Seiji hesitated, knowing he should leave well enough alone. “You didn’t hate it?”

“You thought I would, didn’t you?” Nicholas laughed, snaking an arm around Seiji’s waist and pulling him close as they walked back to the bus. “I don’t understand why every dance has to be so long. Like, damn, you’ve left the stage three times already, why do you keep coming back? But, no, I liked it. Totally a good date. But I’m picking what we do next time.”

Next time. Seiji knew there would have to be a next time now. Nicholas had done absolutely nothing to prove that he would make a terrible boyfriend tonight. He’d done just the opposite.

***

“I saw you sneaking in at eleven last night,” Aiden said, slipping an arm over Seiji’s shoulders. “What were you naughty kids up to, hm?”

“Why were you up at eleven, watching out the window? Or were you listening at the door? I don’t know which is worse.”

“I saw you leave,” Aiden waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t spy without good reason. I was specifically waiting to see when you’d come back. You two looked so cute and dapper, where’d you go?”

“None of your business.” Seiji said, trying to move his attention back to studying. He wasn’t sure how Aiden had managed to track him down so easily and so early in the morning. He’d foolishly thought he’d be safe in the library, but it seemed clear to Seiji now that the only place to hide from Aiden would be in his own room. And his room currently had Nicholas in it. So it wasn’t an option.

“I’d make a joke about a love hotel here, if that weren’t so obviously unnecessary for you two.”

“Is there a difference between a love hotel and a regular hotel?” Seiji asked absently, and the look on Aiden’s face was almost worth the conversation. “I’ve always wondered. Are there specific hotels for that? I’ve never seen any. Are they just subtle, am I oblivious to them? Or are they something that don’t actually exist in our culture, despite constant references to them?”

“I’m not…” Aiden cocked his head, thinking.

“Right?” Seiji said triumphantly, feeling like he’d won an argument. Aiden pulled out his phone.

“Do…love…hotels…exist…in…America…” Aiden said aloud as he typed. Seiji looked at the small screen as Aiden skimmed through sites and answers. “Huh, would you look at that? They don’t seem to exist here, no. But any hotel is a love hotel if you bring the love.”

“Gross.”

“Now that we’ve solved the great love hotel mystery, are you going to tell me about your first date?”

Seiji sighed. He’d known he wouldn’t be able to escape Aiden’s prying. And, truth be told, he didn’t entirely want to. Aiden was the only one who knew how this whole thing with Nicholas had started. And he’d proven helpful before.

“An old woman at will call told me I look at Nicholas like she does at her wife.” He wasn’t sure why this was the detail he’d decided to share, but there it was.

“I could have told you that.”

“You have a wife that you look at the same way I do at Nicholas?” Seiji asked and Aiden laughed.

“Fuck, I hope not. Wouldn’t know what to do with a wife if one punched me in the face.”

“Divorce her, presumably. Domestic abuse is a serious offense.”

“You’re a riot,” Aiden laughed loudly enough to earn glares from nearby tables. “I like you.”

“Is that so?”

“Okay, back to Nicholas. You look at him like an old lady looks at her wife. Are we ready to admit that you like him yet?”

“I dragged him to see  _Swan Lake,”_  Seiji said instead of answering.

“Oh? And how’d that go?”

“Well.”

“Couldn’t scare him off, could you?” Aiden said, examining Seiji’s dissatisfied face. This was why Seiji didn’t mind Aiden so much. He seemed to understand, at least to an extent, how Seiji’s thought process worked. Seiji shook his head.

“He was everything I’d want a boyfriend to be. But he’s— _Nicholas.”_ Seiji couldn’t think how else to describe his qualms, but Aiden just nodded as if this made perfect sense.

“So are you going to dump him?” Aiden asked, and Seiji shook his head again. “Don’t have a good enough reason to dump him?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, Seiji, it seems to me that your problem is that you keep waiting for a good enough reason to dump him. Not to be rude, but why date him in the first place if your goal was tricking him into pissing you off enough or fucking up big enough to get him dumped?”

“You’re the one who told me I should date him,” Seiji said, all too aware that he was getting defensive.

“Yeah, but I kinda meant that you should date him and if, naturally, it turns out it won’t work or you somehow misunderstood your feelings, you should break it off then. But you’re like…trying to booby trap him with ballet.”

“I should break up with him, shouldn’t I? I don’t  _want_  to date him. Logic follows that I should break up with him.”

“So why don’t you?”

“I like dating him, and—,” He didn’t finish, but Aiden’s grin made it clear he knew what else Seiji liked. It was the same reason he hadn’t broken things off with Nicholas after he’d accused him of fooling around with Aiden, even though it had been the perfect opportunity, the perfect out. And a justified one, too. It hadn’t been one of Nicholas’s finer moments.  _That_ had warranted dumping him over, surely. But Seiji had not put a stop to any of it. Had pushed things further, making sure Nicholas would ask him out. All because he liked kissing Nicholas.

“So you like dating him, and you like kissing him, but you don’t want to date him?”

“Yes.”

“And do you want to kiss him?”

“That’s a personal question,” Seiji tried deflecting. But the deflection itself made his answer clear enough. “It’s just that—you’ve kissed a lot of people, haven’t you?”

“Yes, I’m something of an expert,” Aiden said, finally withdrawing his arm from Seiji’s shoulder to tip back in his chair. Seiji watched him teeter on the two back legs for a moment before speaking.

“Does it all feel good to you?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean,” Seiji glanced around the quiet library, lowered his voice another notch. “I don’t like kissing. I never did. But I like kissing Nicholas, and I don’t understand why it feels so good with him when I always hated it before. Is every other person I’ve kissed terrible at it? Is the only reason I want to be with Nicholas because I like the way he kisses me and I want to keep that, so I don’t break up with him?”

“It’s possible your other kisses were just bad,” Aiden shrugged. “If you weren’t dating Nick, I’d offer to kiss you so you could compare, because I happen to know I’m a phenomenal kisser.”

“That won’t be any help now.”

“No, guess not. I like kissing, but it’s better when you like someone. So if kissing Nick is like the best thing ever, it might have more to do with him than the kissing, you know? But maybe he is just  _really_ good. Damn, if you guys weren’t dating, maybe I’d go give him a quick test run to see for myself—,”

“Don’t you dare,” Seiji hissed with such hostility it surprised even him. Aiden’s chair banged onto all four legs, Aiden having lost balance at Seiji’s tone. Soon, though, he was smiling knowingly and standing up.

“Stop trying to hate Nick so much,” Aiden said, “it’ll save you both a lot of grief if you just get over yourself and admit that you like him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a) I am a slut for fencing but im also a slut for ballet so i gave that sluttiness to Seiji and you can fight me (also I head canon him as the fucking poshest ass hole and you can fight me on that too). b) listen, I know they live in Connecticut and like for authenticity I tried to find a ballet theatre/troop in Connecticut that they could go to but I just couldn’t find one that I felt I could steal for the purposes of this fic so I just transplanted my favorite theatre and ballet company into a conveniently close to Kings Row location in Connecticut and you all just have to work a little harder with me for suspension of disbelief. Thank you


	10. Chapter 10

Nicholas was a good boyfriend, much to Seiji’s frustration. Not that he had anything to judge against as he’d never found anyone he felt worth dating before. It disturbed him that he’d somehow found the disaster of a boy that was Nicholas Cox to be  _worth dating._  Then again, Seiji wasn’t sure that it would last. He kept waiting for his interest to dissipate, for Nicholas to say or do something he found repugnant enough to permanently repel him. But Seiji had, thus far, remained unnervingly content in this relationship.

“Seiji, you’re doing it again,” Nicholas said, yawning as he twisted in the desk chair to face Seiji. Seiji considered his options, decided on denial.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah you do,” Nicholas’s lips curled in a knowing smile and it made Seiji angry that Nicholas could read him so well and so confidently. “You’re staring at me like you’re planning how best to murder me and dispose of the corpse. For like the millionth time,” he laughed, then, as he often did. Seiji didn’t understand why he laughed so much. “Are you going to tell me why you’re thinking so hard about me, or do I have to guess?”

“Don’t be so vain. You can’t prove that I was thinking anything about you.”

“If you weren’t thinking of me, you wouldn’t be drilling a hole through my skull,” Nicholas shrugged. “And you wouldn’t blush so much every time I caught you staring if it weren’t about me.”

“I’m  _not_  blushing,” Seiji snapped.

“You’re such a terrible liar, but it’s adorable that you keep trying. Even when the evidence is literally  _right there_  proving you wrong. Especially then.”

“Maybe I  _was_  plotting your murder. You’d deserve it.”

“What’d I do?” But he was laughing again, and raising from his seat. Seiji didn’t move, knowing that Nicholas would come to him whether or not he encouraged it. Sure enough, in another moment, Nicholas was sitting on his bed next to him.

“You’re too close,” Seiji said, unable to describe to Nicholas that he’d invaded every corner of Seiji’s life from his personal space to his dreams to his thoughts. Or how he somehow seemed to understand Seiji as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Couldn’t think how to say that every thoughtful thing he said and did terrified Seiji because he wasn’t supposed to  _know_  Seiji. He wasn’t supposed to be this close, all his kindness and warmth pressing in on Seiji from all sides.

“Do you want me to be less close?” Nicholas asked, easy and light, though Seiji were sure if he said  _yes_ , Nicholas would comply.

“No.” Seiji admitted it with a frustrated sigh. Nicholas smiled, catching Seiji’s hand and kissing it. It was one of the strange little things Seiji had noticed Nicholas enjoyed doing. Soft, tiny kisses placed on his hands, hair, forehead, cheeks, and even his nose, scattered throughout the day. He wasn’t sure what to do with all of Nicholas’s small affections, but it didn’t deter Nicholas from giving them.

“And there’s that look again!” Nicholas grinned, knocking his hand against Seiji’s head lightly. “You seriously look like you’re trying to solve world peace.”

“You’re sentence doesn’t clearly convey your point.”

“You knew what I meant anyway, so what does it matter? And don’t change the subject. What do you keep thinking of?”

“Nothing.” Seiji saw Nicholas raise his eyebrows at the obvious lie, but he ignored the unspoken accusation. He wasn’t about to tell Nicholas that he was trying to decide if he actually liked him or not. Every time he thought of any little thing about Nicholas he liked, it led him back to the same question:  _Do I really want to be dating Nicholas?_  It was a difficult question because all evidence pointed to  _yes_ , but Seiji didn’t  _want_  to want to be dating Nicholas. So he kept fighting it.

“I’m going to have to guess then, aren’t I?”

“I am in no way asking you to guess.”

“I’m going to guess.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“I’m going to pretend you were thinking whatever I want you to have been thinking about if you don’t tell me.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“I’m going to see it as fact, if you don’t correct me.”

“I’ll correct you,” Seiji assured him, “but I don’t expect you to listen.”

“You were thinking about me.”

“Was I?”

“You were wishing I’d kiss you.”

“Aren’t I always?” The words came out so casually it took Seiji a moment to realize what they’d been. He and Nicholas stared at each other in mutual surprise and Seiji couldn’t say which of them was more shocked by the question. Nicholas recovered first.

“Glad to hear it,” Nicholas said, already pulling Seiji to him. With a hand tangled in his hair, Nicholas pressed a kiss to his lips. Seiji closed his eyes and let himself fall into the kiss, ready to let all his worries slip away for the duration. It was hard to doubt his feelings for Nicholas when they were pressed together so closely and Nicholas held him so tightly, so gently. Only, this time, as Seiji parted his lips, Nicholas didn’t take the invitation. He pulled away instead, and Seiji was left feeling foolish at the rejection. “If something’s bothering you,” Nicholas said, forehead pressed to Seiji’s as he stared him intently in the eye. “Tell me. You worry too much, and it makes  _me_ worry if you don’t tell me what the problem is.”

“You—,” Seiji glared at Nicholas, at once charmed by his concern and irate at it. “You’re trying to coerce me into telling you.”

“Oh?” Nicholas looked so genuinely amused and surprised at the accusation it just made Seiji’s blood boil hotter.

“You know what you’re doing,” he growled. “You’re holding kisses hostage until I tell you what I’ve been thinking about.” Nicholas stared at him like he’d gone crazy, then he started cracking up.

“Holding kisses hostage,” Nicholas gasped, still in stitches, and Seiji blushed furiously, pushing Nicholas away from him. “Would that actually work? Jesus, Seiji, I hadn’t thought that at all, but—fuck, I can’t get over how cute that was.”

Seiji didn’t bother with a response, and he ducked out of Nicholas’s grasp when he reached for him, too embarrassed and irritated now to let Nicholas hold him. Nicholas giggled madly for so long, Seiji was closer to breaking up with him than he had been in their two weeks of dating so far.

“I’m sorry,” Nicholas said finally, though Seiji knew it wasn’t a sincere apology. Nicholas was still smiling at him as though he’d just done something endearingly stupid. It irked Seiji further to know that he  _had_  done just that. “I was only trying to let you know you can talk to me, though. I mean, that’s in the job description of boyfriends, you know. I’m here to listen. Plus, I, uh, wanted to make sure we’re all good before I got too far into kissing you. I mean, you  _do_ keep looking at me with that face. And as much as I was kidding around earlier, I know the face you make when you want me to kiss you,” Seiji was horrified at the implication that he had a specific  _expression_ for that and that Nicholas recognized it. “But you just look really worried and shit sometimes and it makes me think I’ve done something to bother you but you’re unwilling to tell me what I’ve done.”

Seiji examined Nicholas, who looked sheepish and vulnerable just then, and he felt bad for worrying him. And touched, too, that Nicholas was worrying over him. He shook his head. “It’s not like that,” Seiji said, “I have no complaints about you, which is astounding, really, given how many I used to have. But I don’t mind your stupid lamp  _that_  much, and I’ve noticed you don’t use all the hot water anymore, and I can’t think of a single thing about you that really bothers me anymore. And  _that_  bothers me.”

Nicholas’s worried expression slowly morphed into a relieved smile. “Good,” he said as he leaned forward to plant his head on Seiji’s shoulder. “I thought you kept looking at me like that because you, like, secretly hated me. But you’re just upset because you like me so much.”

“I—,” Seiji started, then found he couldn’t protest without explaining the rest of his thoughts. But hadn’t Nicholas summed it up nicely? Wasn’t Seiji upset because he liked Nicholas so much when he didn’t want to like him at all, when he didn’t understand why he did? “Do you like me?” He asked before he could change his mind.

“Yeah, ‘course I do.”

“Are you sure?”

“What do you mean?” Nicholas asked, amused, pulling away from Seiji’s shoulder to look at him. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Are you sure you don’t just think you like me because it feels nice to kiss me? How can you be sure that you like me and aren’t just temporarily interested in me because of an accidental attraction?”

“Feelings are intuitive, Seiji,” Nicholas said, befuddlement clear in his expression. “You just know these things, and I  _know_  I like you.” Seiji could have laughed. Feelings were not  _intuitive._  And he certainly didn’t  _just know_  about them. Then, suddenly, Nicholas’s humor vanished. “Is that part of it?” He asked, “what’s bothering you, is it because I never said I like you?”

“No,” Seiji said, but Nicholas either didn’t hear it or didn’t consider it a valid answer.

“I can’t believe I didn’t say this before, since we’ve been dating and all, but I like you. And I’m positive about that, in case you were about to ask.”

“But what if you’re wrong?” Seiji pushed. “What if you’ve mistaken something else for  _like?”_

“You’re really weird, did you know that?” Nicholas asked, but Seiji knew he was considering the question seriously, anyway. “I know I’m not mistaking it for friendship because I want to kiss you and touch you and see you in ways friends don’t think about. And I’m not mistaking it for lust because when I’m with you I feel  _right_  in a way I don’t know how to describe, but it’s like…I love just being near you and holding your hand and knowing that you’re  _my_  boyfriend as much as I do the more physical stuff. Does that make sense?”

“Probably.” But Seiji wasn’t sure just yet. “But how can you be sure it won’t just vanish? That one day those feelings will just be gone?”

“I don’t, I guess,” Nicholas said slowly, watching Seiji with interest. “But they haven’t left yet, have they? And it’s a choice, to an extant, liking someone is. I don’t want my feelings for you to leave, so I’m going to work to make sure they stay. I’m going to work hard to make sure we work out, in the end. I guess I just have to trust that my feelings won’t vanish because I don’t  _want_  them to.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Nicholas nodded. “But, you know, it takes two to make a relationship work.” Nicholas was watching Seiji closely now. He’d obviously picked up on Seiji’s doubts in the questions he’d been asking. Seiji met Nicholas’s questioning gaze steadily, looking into the warm brown eyes that haunted his dreams. He hadn’t meant to like Nicholas. He hadn’t wanted to. He didn’t understand why he did like him  _so damn much_. And was that why he couldn’t figure out his feelings? If feelings really were a choice, in part, then was he struggling to come to a conclusion because he was fighting against them so much?

“I,” Seiji said, a little unsure, but then he let resolve wash through him. It filled him with a warmth, a  _rightness,_  to think that he liked Nicholas. To let himself  _want_  to like him. “Don’t be stupid, obviously I like you too.” Nicholas laughed, taking Seiji’s face in his hands and kissing his nose. Seiji scowled.

“We did things a little backwards, didn’t we?” He asked with a laugh. Of course they’d done things backwards, Seiji thought, because he hadn’t intended to want anything more from the boy in front of him than a kiss. He’d been wrong, and he decided that he was happy for that.

“There, I told you what you wanted to know,” Seiji said, holding one of Nicholas’s wrists, hand still cupping his cheek. “Now where are my kisses?”

“You’re seriously going to kill me, Seiji,” Nicholas didn’t quite laugh, but it was obvious he wanted to. “The things you say are so…” but Seiji never did find out what the things he said were, because Nicholas cut himself off with the kiss he’d denied Seiji earlier. Sighing happily, Seiji leaned further into his boyfriend and let himself be pulled into his lap.

 _Yes,_  he thought, adjusting his legs to sprawl on either side of Nicholas’s body,  _this feels right._ And, then, as he pulled himself closer against Nicholas,  _I don’t want this feeling to leave._  The feeling when Nicholas did something unexpected and charming, like holding open a door. The feeling when he thought of Nicholas’s eyes raking over his body. The feeling when Nicholas smiled at him. And this feeling, too, of Nicholas’s hands hard on his waist, Nicholas’s mouth insistent on his own, of Nicholas’s stupid hair, so soft beneath his fingers.

“I like you,” Seiji said, breaking away just enough to get the words out. He wasn’t sure why he’d needed to say it out loud again, but he had. And he liked the way it felt when he said this, too. Liked the goofy smile it produced on Nicholas, possibly, even more. He looked so surprised at Seiji’s uncalled for restatement that it made Seiji want to say it again. So he did. “I like you a lot.”

“Don’t stop, okay?” Nicholas asked, kissing against his neck.

“Okay,” Seiji agreed, legs squeezing against Nicholas, to hold him tight, just as every other part of him was doing too. He could tell that Nicholas liked that by the way his hand flew instantly to his thigh and pulled it closer, holding it firm against him. Then Nicholas kissed the hollow of his neck, so gently it was in stark contrast to the steadfast hold he had on Seiji. Like he never planned to let Seiji go, but he intended to treat him gently the whole time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOW this should be finished, right? I mean its the perfect place to end. too bad for you guys that i haven’t fucked shit up yet and i promised i would lol


	11. Chapter 11

Dating Nicholas, it turned out, was even better now that Seiji was happy to be dating him instead of fighting it. He still wasn’t used to it, was still surprised by so much that Nicholas did in way of small affections and considerations, was still baffled every time he insisted on referring to Seiji as sweet, soft words that didn’t suit him at all. But it didn’t stop him from liking it; it probably made him like it all the more. He wondered if he’d ever get used to it. If he’d ever take it for granted as part of every day life.

Arms slid around him from behind, Nicholas’s familiar body notching against his back, his chin resting on his shoulder. No, Seiji decided, there was no getting used to this. He never knew what to do when Nicholas pulled stunts like this, but he didn’t particularly want him to stop, so he let himself lean back against Nicholas, deeper into his arms.

“I’m going to score on you today,” Nicholas told him, voice light and happy. “I’ll lose the match, 7-15, I’m calling it now.”

“You’ve never gotten better than four hits,” Seiji returned, as free of bite as Nicholas’s own words had been. “But by all means, prove me wrong.”

“I will.”

“Get a room,” Eugene called from his corner of the locker room. Seiji couldn’t be sure, but he suspected that Nicholas stuck his tongue out at their teammate. In any case, Eugene rolled his eyes in mock disgust and turned away.

“I think there’s a storage room nearby, if you need a place,” Aiden chipped in helpfully.

“Come on guys, stop flirting, we’ve got fencing to get to.”

“You too, Harvard?” Nicholas asked, betrayal over saturating his tone in parody. But he pulled away from Seiji and got on with dressing. Seiji, already in full gear, turned away so as not to get called on  _leering_  again.

***

Nicholas had lost their match, 5-15, but he still celebrated it with enthusiasm. A new record. Two points short of his promise, and ten points short of victory, but Seiji hadn’t pointed that out. He liked the competition between them, the drive to do better,  _be_ better. But he didn’t miss the angry animosity that had fallen away at some point after they’d started dated. He didn’t plan to pointlessly provoke Nicholas and bring back that seething, ugly undercurrent. He hadn’t thought to worry that losing so often against him would push Nicholas to resenting him, hating him, until they were already too deep in their relationship for it to seem like a legitimate worry. Nicholas wasn’t like that.

Nicholas was, above all else, determined to get better. It was something Seiji deeply admired about him. Even now, as they walked back to their room, hands swinging in tandem between them—entirely because of Nicholas’s absent minded need for constant movement—Nicholas jabbered happily about how he could improve, taking Seiji’s blunt criticisms without any sign of hurt feelings. Seiji watched their joined hands with a now familiar swell of warmth. It was with slight disappointment that he unlocked their door, because this marked the part where Nicholas would usually drop his hand. Today was not an exception and Nicholas scampered in the room, pulling his hand from Seiji’s as he stored away his sports bag and applied more deodorant.

“Going somewhere?” Seiji asked.

“Hm? Yeah, I’m going out with Gene tonight. Gonna go see that dumb robot movie with him,” it seemed, from the way he said it, that  _dumb_  was almost a positive thing to say about the movie, an incentive to go watch it. “The guy at the theatre’s got a thing for Gene and scores him free tickets all the time.”

“That’s unethical.”

“ _You’re_  unethical.”

“That makes no sense,” Seiji told him, unimpressed. Nicholas just shrugged. “Will you be out late?”

“What, are you asking if you should wait up?”

“Well? Should I?” Seiji pressed, leaning against the door so Nicholas couldn’t leave before answering. Nicholas stared at Seiji, as though there were still things about their relationship that surprised  _him_. Things about Seiji that, even after all this time, he didn’t expect. Wasn’t used to.

“No,” Nicholas said finally. “I’ll be late. But don’t worry, I won’t get caught by the curfew police.”

“I know.” Still, Seiji didn’t budge from the door. “Then, before you go, I want a kiss.” Again, that baffled look, followed by a grin as Nicholas advanced. But, though he pressed against Seiji, wrapped a hand in his hair, and was  _so close,_  he didn’t kiss Seiji.

“You know,” Nicholas said slowly, “you can kiss me, too.”

“You don’t say,” Seiji said dryly, but made no move to do so. “I had no idea.”

“I don’t know, sometimes I wonder. You never kiss me, but you tell me to kiss you all the time. It’s like, legal to kiss me first, sometimes.”

“And why would I do that?” Seiji asked, and he could read it on Nicholas’s face that he he was considering getting offended at the question. “I like the way you kiss me. I wouldn’t know how to convey how I want to be kissed anyway. I’d rather you just—do it how you always do.” Nicholas’s eyes were wider than Seiji had ever seen them, and that was saying something. Under that stare, Seiji flushed, slowly. Had he said something embarrassing? He must have, for that look.

“I mean—,” Nicholas let out a strangled laugh. “If you just kiss me, I’d probably take over anyway. You wouldn’t really have to  _do_  anything.” Seiji shook his head, slightly exasperated that Nicholas wasn’t getting this.

“What? Just put my lips against your lips? And then what? You’d kiss me and make it good? I’d rather just verbally ask for it, honestly. It’s much more dignified.” Seiji said, and Nicholas's brows were furrowed in confusion as a smile was growing on his face, obviously out of amusement. “I’m not wrong,” Seiji insisted, and Nicholas laughed, but he had the tact to look guilty about it. Then he did kiss Seiji. But he stopped long before Seiji would have like.

“I don’t mean to be presumptuous,” Nicholas said against his ear, “but are you—it’s just that you don’t seem to be super experienced.”

“Is that a question or an observation?”

“Both?”

“We’re really doing this?” Seiji asked flatly. Nicholas just waited. “Fine. No, clearly I’m not an expert in these things. I never liked kissing before you, so I made no attempts to remedy my inexperience.”

“Before me?” Nicholas asked, pressing in slightly more, grip tightening possessively. Seiji let the pleased sensation at this rush through him; he liked the way Nicholas got jealous sometimes. He never got as upset as he had about Aiden, never enough to raise any alarm, but enough to get that fierce, determined look in his eyes that he wore on the fencing strip. It always raised pinpricks of yearning in Seiji that he’d disliked when they’d first overtaken him. Now, he occasionally humored the idea of provoking this exact look out of Nicholas, just to see it in his eyes. How much Nicholas wanted him. But that was a might too embarrassing a thing to do, even for him. He had no intention of letting Nicholas know that, at times, Seiji liked his  _mean jealous streak_. So he pushed away the near dizzying sensation and managed to roll his eyes.

“Yes,  _before you_. What did you expect?” Seiji said, expertly flippant and dismissive. “And you can’t be upset about it, because  _you_  obviously have ample experience in kissing.”

“I wasn’t saying—,” Nicholas stopped, abrupt. Eyes gleaming and sly smile, Nicholas looked like he’d just discovered a dirty secret. “ _Obviously?”_  He asked. “Am I that good?”

“Yes,” Seiji had to refrain himself from rolling his eyes, this time in earnest.  _That_ was the dirty secret Nicholas thought he’d stumbled on? It wasn’t anything close to a secret. “Remember how I was just telling you that I actively avoided any situation in which I might get kissed until you came along? And now I can hardly go a day  _without_  one. I’m not sure how you got so good—no,” he corrected, “I’m sure I don’t want to know how you got so good.”

“I’ve kissed a lot of people. Or, a fair amount of people a lot of times.”

“I know,” Seiji said, and he couldn’t help the angry twist of his guts at that revelation. “And I  _just said_ I didn’t want to know.”

“But I like kissing you the best.” Nicholas said and the angry twist in his stomach morphed into a satisfying flutter. “The very best.”

“Prove it,” Seiji was momentarily abashed by this needy invitation of his, but it worked. Nicholas kissed him again, and this time the kiss didn’t stop too early. Nicholas seemed to have taken Seiji’s request as a challenge, kissing him alternatively insistently hard and painfully soft. It was dangerously good, and Seiji caught Nicholas’s face between his hands, not allowing him, for once, to wander away. He liked the kisses, hickeys, and all the rest Nicholas was so fond of planting across his neck, shoulders, and chest, but tonight he didn’t want Nicholas’s lips to leave his. Nicholas obliged him, though his hands did plenty of wandering to make up for his mouth’s preoccupation. 

Again, Seiji was overwhelmed by the effect of it all, of Nicholas so close, his scent, an oddly pleasant mix of exertion from fencing and his fresh coat of deodorant, his tongue and teeth and lips expertly manipulating Seiji’s own, and his hands, warm and rough, dragging across his skin, sending shivers down Seiji’s spine, drifting from spot to spot and never staying long enough to sate Seiji’s need for his touch. Seiji was sure Nicholas knew this and took pleasure in his reaction whenever his fingers pressed into a sensitive spot at Seiji’s lower back, or brushed across a nipple. It was infuriating, really, that he insisted on all this  _teasing_  and—

Nicholas’s hands left his skin altogether as he broke free of Seiji’s hold on him to withdraw slightly. This was another thing Nicholas was fond of; stepping back and looking at Seiji in whatever state he’d left him in, as if assessing how best to proceed. Or maybe just to admire what he’d done. Seiji wasn’t a fool. He knew how much Nicholas loved being able to dishevel him so thoroughly. Seiji expected him to come back after a moment. But he didn’t. He looked about as unhappy about it as Seiji was.

“I’ve left Gene waiting for so long,” Nicholas said, searching his pockets for his phone. He found it in his back one and pulled it out, checking it with a frown. “He’s gonna give me so much shit. The movie’s in less than an hour, so I really gotta go.”

“Okay,” Seiji said, trying to school his features into something resembling neutrality. He pushed off from the door, stepping to the side to let Nicholas through.

Nicholas paused, halfway out the door. “Hey, Seiji?”

“Hm?”

“Will you wait up for me after all?”

“Yes,” Seiji smiled as the door closed and Nicholas disappeared.

***

Seiji waited up, true to his word. He might have even if Nicholas hadn’t asked. He wasn’t sure. But the anticipation of Nicholas’s return and the fact that he’d  _asked_  insured that Seiji would not be falling asleep before his roommate—his  _boyfriend—_ returned. He’d filled up the intermitting hours with a shower, homework, reading, and even pointless scrolling on internet forums he didn’t care for but were just the right amount of mindlessness to distract him from slow-passing time without being hindered by his inability to concentrate fully on anything because Nicholas wouldn’t leave his mind.

After a reasonable amount of time had passed, Seiji started casually monitoring the window, watching for Nicholas’s return. It was midnight when Seiji spotted three figures traipsing towards the dorms. He was able to easily recognize Nicholas, and was sure one of the others, the one of middling height, was Eugene. Nicholas had said he was going out with him tonight. The third, and shortest, silhouette was harder to place, but as they passed into a spot of light, Seiji could see that it was Bobby. And that none of the boys looked to be particularly happy, though it was hard to say anything more on the matter. Seiji dismissed it; they must be having an argument over the movie or something else just as trivial.

What bothered him was Bobby. He was dissatisfied with the insecurity and jealousy that stirred to life when he realized Nicholas had been with Bobby. He tried to quell it. But it wouldn’t be pushed aside or disregarded. Nicholas liked cute guys. Bobby was the epitome of all things cute. Nicholas hadn’t mentioned that Bobby would be out with him and Eugene tonight. Why? Had he not thought to mention it, or was there something more there? Did he think Seiji would mind? Was there reason for Seiji to mind?

 _I like kissing you best,_  Nicholas had said. Seiji tore his eyes from the window and planted himself on his bed. He was being stupid. Nicholas liked  _him_. He’d said as much so many times and in so many ways. He’d showed that he liked him too, time and time again. There was no need to worry. It was simply Seiji’s own words come back to haunt him. The uneasy truth that he’d wanted nothing to do with Nicholas when he’d started with his, for lack of a better word, seduction. He’d thought to himself that Nicholas and Bobby were awfully close, that Bobby was awfully cute, and that he suspected but wouldn’t mind at all if there was more to it,  _after_  he’d gotten all he wanted from Nicholas. After that, he’d told himself, Bobby could have Nicholas. He didn’t care.

Only, he did care. And he had not gotten all he wanted from Nicholas. Not yet. He doubted if he ever would. Because all he wanted from Nicholas was everything. His eyes slid again to the window, but he forced down the impulse to go check on them. He didn’t need to be worried. And he trusted Nicholas, besides. There was no reason for the unease he felt. Soon, Nicholas would walk through their door and then he’d be too busy wrapped up in him to think about anything, least of all silly thoughts of Bobby’s nonexistent claim on Nicholas’s heart.

He heard the familiar trumping of Nicholas’s arrival in their hall, and he smoothed down his pajama top out of habit. He realized that he’d put on his standard blue pajamas with the buttons and thought that, maybe, he should change into something more appealing. But Nicholas was pushing open the door now. He looked out of sorts, and as Seiji stood, he saw that it was more than that.

Nicholas was furious.

“So this was all some sort of fucking experiment to you, huh?” The venom with which he spat the question propelled Seiji several paces backwards, as far away from Nicholas as it was possible to be. But not far enough to escape the horrible look in his eyes.


	12. Chapter 12

“What are you talking about?” Seiji asked, but already he could feel the panic start to creep in.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Nicholas growled. He did. Seiji knew, because what else could he be talking about? But this was wrong. All wrong.

“It wasn’t like that,” Seiji tried, but his voice, annoyingly, was starting to shake.

“You and Aiden cooked this shit up to make a fool of me, don’t lie. I think you’ve done enough of that, don’t you?”

“Me and Aiden? We didn’t—,”

“You said he went shopping with you for things to help you, what,  _catch_  me? This seems like the sort of fun he’d look for, but what I don’t get is why you went for it. Was it that much fun? To prove that I’m nothing to you, that I can’t touch you, that you’re so much fucking better than me?”

“Nicholas,” Seiji met Nicholas’s anger with a pinch of his own, willing it to cover up the cracks. “I don’t know what you heard or from whom, but they didn’t tell it right. They—,”

“Lied?  _You’re_ the only liar here. My  _friends_  wouldn’t do that. They actually care about me, which is a foreign concept to you, but they do, okay? So don’t go accusing them of lying just to cover your own ass.”

“I’m not saying they were lying, just that they got it wrong. Or that you took it wrong, if you’d just—,”

“You’re so much worse than I ever thought you were. To just— _play_  with people’s emotions like this. You’re either heartless or you hate me. Maybe both. Fuck,” Nicholas looked like he might break something, like he was ready to start punching. Seiji wondered if he’d be the recipient of one of those punches. The cracks started spreading further, breaking deeper.

“Let me explain,” he wasn’t even sure if Nicholas heard him. Again, “Just give me a chance to—,”

“No! No, you’re too good an actor. I won’t let you—you can’t fool me again.”

“I wasn’t  _fooling_  you of anything,” Seiji insisted.

“Could have fooled me. Did fool me. Shut up. I’m talking now.  _I_  get to be mad now. Do you have any idea how bad you hurt me? Any idea how shitty this feels?”

“I’m trying to tell you that I didn’t mean to! I wasn’t trying to hurt you or lie, you have to believe me—,”

 _“Believe you?_  I don’t have to believe you ever again. But fine, tell me what you  _were_  trying to do, then.”

“I was  _trying_  to get you to—,” he faltered, and Nicholas finished for him.

“Kiss you? That’s what this was for, right? A kiss. A  _stupid fucking_ kiss.”

“Yes, but that’s not—,”

“All this time I thought you really liked me,” Nicholas laughed, but it was truly unlike any laugh Seiji had ever heard from him before. Cruel and bitter, it cut as deep as everything else pouring from his lips. Maybe deeper. To hear Nicholas’s wonderful laugh distorted and sharpened to be used as a weapon…Seiji would have preferred a punch. “But, in reality, this was all just a sick joke.”

“No—,” he only got the one word out, but it was firm and solid.

“Did you have fun?” Nicholas’s anger broke, for a single instant, and Seiji saw the hurt in his face.  _This is wrong,_  Seiji thought, fully aware that the world was falling apart but unable to think how to pull it back together, to salvage it from  _this._ “I bet you and Aiden had such a good time, laughing at how far you could push me. God, I really am an idiot, aren’t I? To think for even just a second you actually liked me.”

“I  _do_ ,” but Nicholas was talking over him even as he spoke.

“I thought—fuck, Seiji, I thought I loved you.” The words hit Seiji like a spike, driven hard into one of the cracks of his composure, and he knew it wasn’t just the world falling apart anymore. It was him. He could feel the buildup behind his eyes, the scream in the back of his throat. “Fuck you, for that.”

“Nicholas, just,”  _listen_ , but he couldn’t get it out, his throat was too constricted.

“In case it wasn’t obvious,” Nicholas said, tone horribly level, “we’re over. I’m not sure about, like, the etiquette around this since we weren’t really dating. It was all just manipulation and lies and whatever, so does something like that even need a break up?”

“Please,” Seiji choked out, one last effort. “Please, just listen to me.”

“There’s no point in  _listening,”_  Nicholas’s voice was entirely frigid now, devoid of passion. Seiji thought it might be worse than the hot anger he’d displayed earlier. “You fucking lied to me this whole time. You built this thing between us on deceptions and fabrications. How could I ever tell the difference between reality and lies? It’s impossible.”

“But—,”

“Bobby said he’d let me bunk with him tonight.”  _Bobby._  As much as it hurt, what Nicholas was saying—that he hated Seiji so much he couldn’t be in the same room as him, that he was going to go sleep on the floor in adorable, sweet  _Bobby Rodriguez’s_ room—that wasn’t the worst of it. It was the way he looked, cold and shut off. Uncaring. Watching impassively as tears were flooding down Seiji’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Seiji heard himself say, “I’m sorry.” Nicholas didn’t look the least bit concerned that Seiji was falling apart, not even a flash of desire to comfort, to listen, to  _try._  It was over, then, Seiji thought, and he let himself crumple, leaning against the wall for support as Nicholas watched him, empty eyed.

Seiji felt his whole body wrack in sobs. He couldn’t remember crying this hard, ever. Couldn’t remember caring about something this much, either. Other than fencing, and this was worse. Losing to Jesse at nationals was far better than this. Fencing, he could work at, he could get better, he could try again and win. Losing Nicholas was so, so much worse. No amount of skill or practice could ever bring Nicholas back. There was no  _next time_ , no  _winning._

“Bye, Seiji,” Nicholas said simply, and then his back was to Seiji, his hand reaching for the door.

“Nick,” Seiji pleaded. “Nick.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay now it’s the end :)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> APRIL FOOLS!!  
> I love you guys so much but I think I might be terribly mean because it pleased me greatly how upset you were. So much so that I (briefly) considered ignoring my plans and actually ending the story there. But I didn’t <3

Seiji’s broken, distorted voice hung in the heavy silence between them. Seiji watched, waiting for Nicholas to turn the damn knob and leave him. His only consolation was that Nicholas would have to face Coach Williams to get a new room assignment. He tried to laugh, but it came as a sputtering sob. The sound caused a strange tension to form across Nicholas’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Seiji said when Nicholas didn’t leave. “I admit that my intentions were…not what I led you to believe, at the beginning. But I—,” his vision was blurry, his throat ached with the effort of keeping in all the angry, hurt, and miserable sounds that generally came with crying. He wiped furiously at his tears, but it didn’t staunch the flow. He hated how pathetic, how powerless and weak he was in this moment. He was determined not to make a bigger spectacle of himself than was absolutely beyond his control. So he bit down on his lip hard, unwilling to try to continue speaking words that would fall on deaf ears anyway, only to have wails of anguish come out instead.

Nicholas turned, abruptly, away from the door, eyes landing on Seiji again. Seiji flinched back at the sudden movement, startled by it. Seeing Nicholas  _see_  him like this made Seiji’s skin crawl, and he was suddenly angry at his vulnerability and raw emotion. Angry that Nicholas had caused it. Angry that he was here to see it. He bared his teeth, and something new ripped out of him, something he didn’t know he had in him. It was like a final defense against what had to be Nicholas’s final attack, only Seiji didn’t wait for a chance to counter it.  _He_  attacked first.

“Can’t get enough?” His voice didn’t sound like him. “The great Seiji Katayama reduced to tears by  _you._  It must feel great,” this time, his laugh came through the tears, rendered all the more terrible for them. “It’s what you always wanted. To make a mess of me. And I deserve it, isn’t that right? I was so terrible, wasn’t I? Wanting to kiss you, wanting to date you, wanting to like you. I know I did it all wrong, but you’ll have to excuse me for being so inept at feelings. I don’t have them, after all. It’s only natural to struggle with such things when your heart is nonexistent. I made mistakes, I’ll admit it. I tried so hard not to fall in love with you. I didn’t want to. If I’d known it would be like this, you passing judgments based on rumors and hearsay without ever letting me  _explain,_ without even bothering to  _talk_ to me about any of it…if I’d known it would be like this, I would have fought harder against it,” his voice cracked, and all the bitter sharp anger drained from him. His last line of defense gone, well and truly  _gone._  “I wouldn’t have—,” and those awful, shameful sobs were ripping out of him now, clear and loud. He pushed through it, “—have let myself—love you.”

And then Nicholas was coming at him fast. He didn’t think it would be a punch. Even as mad and hurt as he was, Nicholas wouldn’t do that to him. Not at this moment. Maybe, sometime in the future after they’d switched rooms, after they’d put this behind them, there’d be a spark of aggression for any number of reasons and they’d find themselves in another side room exchanging blows. But not now. Not while he was  _crying_ , for heaven’s sake. Nicholas  _wouldn’t_  do that to him. He was sure of it.

Arms wrapped around him, a hand in his hair pressed his face against a solid, familiar chest, a voice soothed him with soft hushing sounds. Seiji wanted to hate it, wanted to pull away, possibly even to hit Nicholas for daring to touch him like this, to wrap him up in his arms as if he actually cared. For pretending he wasn’t mad, that he’d understand, that everything would be alright. But he couldn’t, wasn’t strong enough to do anything more than hesitate for a strange, wavering moment before clutching at Nicholas’s back and shaking in his arms as he tried to purge himself of tears.

“Okay,” said Nicholas, soft and low, like Seiji had heard it so many times before. “It’s okay. I’m—I’m ready to listen to you. Whenever you’re ready to talk. I’m listening.” Seiji didn’t want to talk anymore. Didn’t want to do anything more than stay right as he was. Talking had a way of making things worse. Talking might make Nicholas pull away again, might bring back that awful, empty look in Nicholas’s eyes that had seemed to gaze on a stranger and not Seiji—the boy he’d been dating for  _months_ , whom he’d known for longer still. Nicholas didn’t prod him, just held him and rubbed circles in his back, ran fingers through his hair. Seiji couldn’t stop crying, but he did get it under control enough to stop convulsing with loud sobs. Eventually. And when his tears had turned to a trickle, he turned his head to speak. His voice came out with effort, hoarse and painful.

“I only wanted to kiss you at first so that I’d hate it, like I hated every other kiss I’ve ever had,” Seiji started, and Nicholas didn’t show any indication that anything had changed, hands still soothing him gently and chest still raising and falling evenly. “I—thought you attractive,” he admitted, “I couldn’t stop staring. That’s how Aiden caught me. He misunderstood my intentions, if not my emotions. I’m afraid I’m the only one who mistook those. But I digress. Aiden said he could help me get you. I let him help. How else would I seduce you? With my own charm?” He laughed again, and, though it was still not particularly joyous, it had a certain self-deprecating humor behind it. “As you know, it worked. I got what I wanted. But I liked it too much. I…didn’t know what to do with that. With the knowledge that the only person I’ve ever enjoyed kissing in my life was  _you_ , my rather annoying roommate who can’t wear shirts properly to save his life. It was troubling. So I went to Aiden. He’d helped me the first time, I thought, why not again?”

“And he told you to date me,” Nicholas said, but if there was judgment in his voice, Seiji couldn’t detect it. He nodded against Nicholas’s chest.

“Yes, he did. He said I’d figure it out, if we dated.”

“Figures,” Nicholas’s tone seemed to be regaining some of the easy wryness so commonplace in conversations with him. “That’s such Aiden-like advice. Just fucking go for it, never mind that if you don’t end up liking the other person, you get an easy out. It just leaves them a little worse for wear.”

“Would you like me to apologize?” Seiji asked peevishly. “Or would you like to watch me cry some more?”

“Seiji, I—,”

“I’ve changed my mind, you don’t get a say. It’s  _my_  turn to talk now, and you have to listen.”

“Who died and gave you the talking stick?”

“ _You_  will, if you don’t shut up.” Nicholas, for once, didn’t interrupt or retort. “I tried scaring you off, when we started dating. Do you remember  _Swan Lake?”_

“Yeah, ‘course I do. It was our first date.”

“I was sure you’d hate it and I’d find you unsatisfactory because of your heathen tastes in entertainment.”

“You really didn’t think much of me.”

“Most people don’t like ballet, Nicholas. But you were so—perfect. And then you agreed to go to the remainder of the season with me, despite not  _really_  liking ballet.” His chest squeezed, thinking of the last dance of the season, roughly two weeks away. He had no idea if he’d be seeing it. He was sure he couldn’t go alone. “Aiden scolded me for trying to sabotage you.”

“Really? Aiden did?”

“Yes, really. He’s…not terrible,” Seiji said carefully, so as not to trigger any other aggressions in Nicholas just now. Nicholas made a sound that could have been a laugh, very possibly because he knew exactly what Seiji was doing. “So I tried to stop, but I—I’ve never  _liked_  anyone before. And I don’t mean just in a romantic way. I’ve genuinely never gotten so attached to anyone as I did to you. Never had friends I cared about, particularly. And before you say anything, I  _know_  you’ll just tell me that that’s terrible, so don’t bother. Save your breathe.”

“Actually,” Nicholas said, “I was  _going_  to say that I remember that night. When you gave in. You asked me so many weird questions, and then you told me—,”

“That I like you. Yes, bravo, you have a decent longterm memory.”

“Did you really fall in love with me?”

“Will it change anything if I say yes?”

“No,” Nicholas answered firmly, and Seiji closed his eyes, accepting defeat. But when he tried to pull out of the embrace, he found that Nicholas was holding him as firmly as he’d answered the question. “I don’t plan on letting you go, either way. Just wanted to know where I stand right now.”

“You…?” And he was crying again, and Nicholas was holding him tighter. “But you said,” Seiji couldn’t keep the accusation from his voice. “You  _said_  that you hated me and we were over.”

“Are you seriously arguing with me over this?”

“Yes.”

“Look, I never said I  _hate_ you.”

“It was implied.”

“I was mad.”

“And now?”

“I’m…” Nicholas considered, “relieved. Yeah, that’s what I am. Relieved. I thought this was a lie.”

“You’re stupid, why would I cry if it were a lie?”

“I know.” Nicholas sighed, “I don’t know, I just—it got in my head and I kept thinking of you and Aiden laughing at me. And I know that makes no sense. But I got insecure, and I assumed the worst. It doesn’t hurt so bad when you’re the angry one, you know? Gene tried to talk me down, but I didn’t listen. I’m sorry I didn’t listen.” Seiji knew he wasn’t apologizing for not listening to Eugene. And then Nicholas’s hand moved from his hair, fingers tracing down his cheek the way Nicholas liked to caress him. Gently, Nicholas took a hold, cupping his face, and tried to guide Seiji away from the soaked spot against his shirt, to little success. “Seiji,” Nicholas said, coaxing. Seiji stubbornly ignored it. “Why won’t you look at me?” Nicholas asked, seeming to cross into light exasperation, now trying flat out to pry Seiji away.

“Because you’ll try to kiss me,” Seiji said.

“And that’s a problem?”

“Yes. I’ve been—I’m a mess. You won’t be seeing my face until it’s been dealt with, if I can help it, much less be  _kissing_ it.”

“Seiji, come on, please?” Seiji could practically feel the effort it was taking Nicholas not to point out that he had just seen Seiji crying, which had to be worse than whatever swollen, tearstained mess the fit had left behind.

“No, I’m not seemly.”

“You’re always  _seemly_ ,” Nicholas snorted.

“I’m not  _cute,_  then.” Seiji scathed. Nicholas may be  _here_ , holding  _him,_ but he’d been about to go to Bobby, and with all the emotions of the night, Seiji was finding it difficult to dismiss his own insecurities. Nicholas stiffened and Seiji took it as evidence that he should be worried, until Nicholas spoke.

“Don’t hit me,” he said, which was always a good indication that he was about to say something that deserved hitting over. “But I’m sure you look extra cute right now.”

Aghast, Seiji pulled out of Nicholas’s grasp—to an extent—to glare at him, “I  _knew it_ ,” Seiji blazed, and Nicholas scorched red. “You  _did_  like making me cry!” He only realized that he’d failed his main objective when Nicholas’s hand found his cheek again, thumb brushing tears that hadn’t quite dried yet.

“It’s not like I like making you hurt,” Nicholas said quickly at Seiji’s continued glower. “But,” he shrugged. “It  _is_  impressive that you’d cry over me. Kinda…”

“Don’t say it.”

“Cute.”

“I hate you.”

Nicholas laughed, his usual, wonderful laugh. And then, despite that Seiji had vetoed the idea, Nicholas kissed him. Just a small brush of the lips, but still enough to kick Seiji’s heart into overdrive.

“Hey, are we even?”

“Even?” Seiji had a hard time following Nicholas’s scattered train of thought at the best of times. And right now was not the best of times. He was tired, emotionally drained, and distracted by the memory of soft lips on his.

“Yeah, even. You based our relationship on a lie and then tried to trap me into fucking up—,”

“Not that you need help with that, really.”

“ _Moving on,_ that was pretty shitty.”

“I know.”

“But I was pretty shitty just now.”

“I know that too.”

“So…are we even?”

“Say you’re sorry.”

“I’m sorry.” No hesitation, and not a drop of levity in it. He meant it. Not that it was a surprise. Nicholas was always quick to apologize.

“So am I,” Seiji said, though Nicholas didn’t prompt it. Didn’t require it. “I’m sorry for using you and trying my best to sabotage you.” Nicholas laughed again, kissing his forehead.

“Alright, I forgive you. Obviously I forgive you. I’m sorry I doubted you. And I’m sorry I made you cry.”

“You looked at me like you didn’t care,” Seiji had meant to return the absolution that Nicholas had granted him. But it didn’t come out right. He kept thinking of Nicholas’s eyes, cold and hard, watching as he fell apart, doing nothing  _but_  watching. “You just turned it off. You say I’m heartless, but Nicholas,  _that_  was—terrifying.”

“I’m sorry,” Nicholas said, but it wasn’t what Seiji wanted to hear, and he seemed to realize his mistake. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”

“Fine,” Seiji said tightly. “I forgive you, so we’re even.”

It was time for bed. Seiji was sure it was well past midnight, and even though he got to sleep in on weekends, he still woke up at 6:00 AM. Tomorrow was not going to be an easy day on him. With that in mind, and exhaustion finally getting the better of him, he slipped away from Nicholas and tugged back the covers of his bed.

“I  _did_  care,” Nicholas’s voice stopped him from climbing, or, more likely, collapsing into his bed. “I’m just good at hiding emotions. Funny that of the two of us, it’s me that can  _turn them off_. See, most people would think you’re great at hiding how you feel. But you’re really not. You maybe don’t know how to express it always, but you’re shit at hiding them. Your so called emotionlessness is really just how you are. You show everything you feel, in little ways. I really love that, did you know? How expressive you are.” Seiji stared at Nicholas, nonplussed. Never in his life had he been accused of being  _expressive._  “But I’ve got lots of practice, sucking it up and hiding literally anything from giving an advantage to anyone who’d use it against me. Kings Row is different than my old school. This life is so different from my old one. I fell out of habit.” Nicholas stopped, thinking. “No, actually, I think it’s just that I never got into a situation here where it would kick in. But tonight…I went into fight mode. I’m sorry I scared you—,”

“I wasn’t frightened of you,” Seiji interjected, indignant.

“No, I didn’t mean you were scared of me like that. Duh. What I mean is I’m sorry I made you think I could ever just  _stop_ caring about you because I was mad. I was torn up between wanting to be mad at you and wanting to hold you. Being mad won out, which is why I hid the part about wanting to comfort you. I guess I did want to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

“What tipped the balance? Why didn’t you leave?”

“That’s two separate questions.”

“So?”

“You’ve never called me Nick before.” Nicholas shrugged. “That’s why I didn’t leave. It just sounded so wrong and broken how you said it. I couldn’t leave when you called my name like that.”

“It won’t happen again,” Seiji said, skin prickling with unease and embarrassment over his behavior in the last hour.

“No,” Nicholas agreed. “I’ll make sure you never have to say it like that again.”

“How chivalrous.”

“That’s me,” Nicholas’s smile was a subdued version of his usual exuberance. “I should have done everything different tonight. I shouldn’t have come in guns blazing. I shouldn’t have waited so long to hold you. It was the way you looked, when you’d finished yelling at me—which, like, was way less than I deserved. You looked like you expected me to leave you.”

“You were going to,” Seiji pointed out.

“After getting an insight on your side of things? After you said you’d loved me? I couldn’t leave after that. But you were ready for me to go. That’s when I knew I’d forgive anything, even if you had started this as some kind of joke.”

“I didn’t.”

“I know. Now. But I would have forgiven you if you  _had_  is my point.”

“Then I’ll forgive you for your abysmal behavior tonight.” And he meant it fully this time. Nicholas, always so good at reading him, recognized it for the truth and a tension in his face, in his posture, relaxed. Seiji just nodded, then felt sleep tug at him again. But his face felt hot, his eyes swollen, and his cheeks oddly stiff with dried out tears. He couldn’t sleep like this. So, deeming his conversation with Nicholas over, he slipped into the bathroom to wash his face. He avoided his reflection, ducking back out of the bathroom without ever looking to the mirror.

“You actually  _dealt with it,_ ” Nicholas said, a laugh on his lips as he attached Seiji’s actions to his earlier words. Sensing where this line of conversation might lead, Seiji made a point of ignoring Nicholas’s inviting posture.

“For bed,” he said, not glancing at Nicholas as he walked past, “you’ve kept me up far too long already, so don’t think you’ll get anything more out of me. If you’d wanted something different, you should have started with that instead of wasting my time.” Nicholas caught his wrist, drew Seiji to him anyway.

“You’re right, but I just realized something.”

“What?”

“I broke up with you.”

“Thank you for the reminder, but it’s rather unnecessary. I  _was_  here for that, after all.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed you were here at all,” Nicholas said, eyes wide and the picture of shock. He was so infuriatingly full of shit. “Will you be my boyfriend again?” Quick as that, his entire demeanor changed and he was serious as Seiji had ever seen him. Nicholas watched Seiji like it was a question that actually needed to be asked.

“Yes,” Seiji said, after a pause in which a dozen different quips had passed through his mind. The smile that he was given because of his simple answer just made him sigh. He was defeated by this boy, completely. “And it’s present tense,” he surrendered the information for no other reason than Nicholas’s happy, open smile had made him want to, but Nicholas didn’t get it. “You said you couldn’t leave after I’d said that I  _had_  loved you. Implying it’s in the past. It’s not.” Nicholas’s breath caught, Seiji could hear it clearly. Could read the shock melt to delight on his face. And knew that Nicholas was going to grab him into a hug even before his arms came up to do so. They did, not even a moment after Seiji had predicted it. He’d already started leaning into Nicholas by the time he was, once again, pressed to his chest. Then Nicholas was showering him in little kisses. Seiji allowed it, but not for as long as he was sure Nicholas would have liked.

He disengaged, and at Nicholas’s questioning look, Seiji pressed his hand flat against Nicholas’s chest, on the spot where his face had been seconds ago. Where it had been minutes ago, too, as evidenced by the dampness. “Your shirt is dirty,” he said, “and I’ve just washed my face.”

“Thank god,” Nicholas said, hands pulling away from Seiji. “ _That_ , I can fix. Super easily.” His shirt was off in a flash, then dropped to the floor and kicked under the duck curtain, to the other side of the room. Seiji stared at the spot where the offending shirt had just disappeared from.

“You’re unbelievable,” Seiji told him. “You can’t just drop your dirty clothes on the floor.”

“It’s on my floor, so, yeah, I can.”

“Actually, I believe that you  _dropped_  it on  _my_  floor, even if it’s on your floor now.”

“Stop being such a fusspot. Can I hug you now? Just for a little, then I’ll let you sleep.” But Seiji didn’t answer. Nor did he step forward into Nicholas’s arms, though he considered it. A different desire won out.

It wasn’t the first time Seiji had seen Nicholas shirtless. Their daily lives afforded him several opportunities to catch Nicholas in such a state. He never had corrected his bad dressing habits. It wasn’t something Nicholas was bashful about, being half dressed. Even now, he didn’t seem to grasp the simple intimacy he’d inadvertently displayed, created, encouraged. Seiji raised a hand, hesitant for only an instant, then, decidedly, purposefully, he reached to brush his fingers against Nicholas’s bare shoulder. Nicholas had been watching him curiously as he’d considered what he would do, as he’d brought a hand up to do what he’d decided on, what he wanted. But a muscle under his fingers still twitched at the touch, like, in the end, it really hadn’t been expected.

It wasn’t the first time for  _this_ , either. Seiji had often times pressed hands to skin all across Nicholas’s torso. Only, it had always been in the heat of the moment, a byproduct of deep kisses. It had always been under shirts, always by feel alone. Maybe  _this_  was a first, after all. Seiji deliberately traced lines and muscles, then pressed his palm flat against Nicholas’s chest, feeling the frantic beating of his heart.

“Alright,” he said, sliding his hand down to Nicholas’s stomach, across his side, to the small of his back, stepping forward, at last, into his space. “You may hug me.” Instantly, Nicholas’s arms were around him, as if they’d been waiting, coiled and ready to spring the second Seiji gave permission. As Seiji held Nicholas, feeling the heat of his skin through the single layer of cloth that was his own shirt, hands flat against Nicholas’s back, soaking in the contact, he regretted that he was buttoned up in his blue nightshirt, long sleeved and relatively high necked. If he were in one of his short sleeved, loose necked shirts, he’d be able to feel more of Nicholas’s skin directly on his.

“I was only so upset when Gene said you got me to kiss you even when you didn’t like me because I was scared I’d lost you. Hell, I was scared I’d never had you in the first place. That’s why I got so terrible. I’ve never been so scared of anything in my entire life.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Seiji murmured, pleased by the confession. Pleased that Nicholas felt the same as he did. Then, he did something unexpected. Certainly, it surprised Nicholas when Seiji placed a small kiss against the bare skin on which his cheek rested. He liked the startled jerk, the hitched breath, so much that he kissed a different spot, then again, this time on his neck.

“Seiji,” Nicholas breathed in warning. “If you don’t stop that, I’ll have to break my word about letting you sleep.”

Sleep. Now that he thought of it, his eyes stung with exhaustion, and, probably, with irritation for all they’d cried. His mind was blurring too, with sleep and contentment. He felt a yawn fighting its way up his throat, and, for once, he let it come.

“Fine,” Seiji said, “I’ll stop it,” but he kissed Nicholas’s skin once more before pulling away. “ _Now_  I’ll stop it.”

“Good call,” Nicholas said, but he seemed almost disappointed.

“There’s always tomorrow,” Seiji told him. Nicholas nodded, breaking into a smile. But he seized Seiji, freezing his retreat, and leaned in for another kiss. It wasn’t quick, but it wasn’t long, either. It was soft and sweet, a promise of affection and care pressed against his lips, simply and carefully into his mouth, and it was Seiji’s turn to be disappointed when Nicholas let go and stepped away.

“There’s always tomorrow,” Nicholas parroted, and Seiji wondered if Nicholas had done it purely in petty retaliation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen I know I’m a dramatic hoe, but you guys keep coming back for more so can you really judge me?


	14. Chapter 14

Seiji saw Eugene’s nervous energy the moment he stepped into the cafeteria for breakfast.  _He’d better figure_ that _out before fencing,_  Seiji thought idly. Fencing when you were so obviously emotionally distraught was a good way to ensure your own loss. Then, he remembered Nicholas last night, saying  _Gene tried to talk me down._  Maybe Nicholas was the source of Eugene’s troubles this morning. Perhaps there should be a club for emotional distress brought on by Nicholas Cox. But, to his surprise, it was  _Seiji_  that Eugene made a direct beeline for, not Nicholas. And it was  _his_  arm that Eugene grabbed so as to drag him out of the cafeteria, out of the building, and into a sufficiently empty courtyard. Seiji was so surprised that he didn’t even resist it.

“Hey, man,” Eugene said, dropping his arm the moment they came to a stop. “Are you okay?”

“Am I…?” Seiji was completely confused. “What?”

“I’m so fucking sorry, Seiji, I swear I didn’t think Nick would go all crazy vengeful spirit over it.”

“Ah,” Seiji said, understanding. “Of course. I forgot about how Nicholas found out. You. Naturally. What did you say?”

“I didn’t snitch on you,” Eugene insisted, though Seiji hadn’t really meant to accuse him of doing so. “Nick’s my boy, you know, I love the guy. But I know you do too. I was  _not_ trying to expose you as an awful, lying, scheming, sociopath who was wasting Nick’s time, ‘cause I know you aren’t, you know?”

“I…appreciate it?”

“Yeah. Well, I only thought it was kind of funny, which I know isn’t cool of me, but Aiden had mentioned that you, uh, you know…jumped into the whole seduction thing before figuring out your own feelings?” He looked like he expected retaliation or denial at this on Seiji’s part. Seiji betrayed nothing, just stared on coolly at Eugene. “Well, that shit’s funny, since Nick pretty much did the same thing, but he didn’t even think he was trying for you. I just mentioned it, to make fun of him a little, you know? But I must have said it in an unflattering way, and I didn’t know either that  _he_  didn’t know about any of it. I just wanted to say sorry for causing trouble. And ask if you guys worked it out?”

“Why do you care?” Seiji said, knowing that Nicholas would call this a ‘rude and hostile question.’

“You guys are gross,” he was smiling, “but you’re good together. Like I said, Nick’s my friend and I like to see him happy.  _You_  make him happy. So I guess I’m just hoping he didn’t fuck it up.”

“He did,” Seiji said and Eugene’s smile was gone. “But we’re fine. We fixed it.” And with everything out in the open, a secret revealed that he hadn’t even realized was a secret, Seiji felt more at ease with the status of his relationship with Nicholas. Nicholas hadn’t been the only one to  _fuck it up_ , after all, Seiji hadn’t been honest at the start. Had been rather callus in his determination to use Nicholas and then throw him aside. But they’d fixed it. They were okay. As if to prove how okay they really were, Nicholas appeared in the courtyard, obviously seeking out Seiji.

“Glad to hear it, bro,” Eugene said, having noticed Nicholas’s approach as well.

“Thank you,” Seiji said after deliberation. “For asking me if I was okay before checking on Nicholas. That was…considerate of you.”

“Yeah, sure. I mean, I know how Nick can be.” Eugene was grinning again, and Seiji held out a hand, intending an amicable handshake. But instead, to add another surprise to this odd morning, Eugene grabbed the proffered hand and used it to pull Seiji against him, then clapped a hand repeatedly on his back. Baffled, Seiji registered that this was one of those weird hugs Nicholas and Eugene engaged in with each other and the others on the team in celebration.

“Hey, hands off,” Nicholas’s tone was far colder than Seiji had ever heard it in use against Eugene. Seiji was already in the process of disentangling from Eugene’s strange show of camaraderie when Nicholas’s hand fell heavy on his shoulder and yanked him away, causing him to stumble backward and into Nicholas.

“What happened to ‘I can never look at him the same way again?’” Eugene poked. “I figured since you were removing yourself from the picture permanently, I’d sneak in and offer a strong, comforting shoulder for Seiji to cry on.”

“Oh go fuck yourself,” Nicholas groused, still holding Seiji tightly.

“Sure, alright, I’ll go do that, then.” He turned, raising a hand in friendly farewell. A few steps later, he threw a glance over his shoulder, broad grin mirroring the one on Nicholas. “Seriously, Nick, next time, let me fucking finish before you jump to conclusions.”

Nicholas laughed, waving Eugene away with the arm that wasn’t now wrapped securely around Seiji’s side.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Seiji informed Nicholas.

“What?”

“You’re jealous of Eugene.”

“Am not.”

“Don’t lie, it’s not becoming.” Seiji said, peeling Nicholas’s grip off him so he could walk back to the cafeteria. He hadn’t gotten breakfast yet. Not to be deterred, Nicholas grabbed tightly to his hand instead.

“Well maybe Gene should have kept his hands to himself,” Nicholas said, like a petulant child.

“He’s  _your_  friend, Nicholas,” Seiji said, thoroughly amused. “And the two of you never keep your hands to yourselves.”

“I know, I know,” Nicholas said, “And you never get upset over it. But I’m just a touchy sort of person, so it doesn’t count. You’re not.”

“No,” Seiji agreed, though he glanced down at his hand, holding Nicholas’s. “But I’m surrounded by people who  _are_  touchy. It’s hardly my fault.”

“You’re right. It’s their fault. They should know better than to touch you.”

“Next you’ll try banning them from looking at me.”

“I’ve thought about it. But then I’d have to ban them from thinking about you too. It’s hard, you know, having such a desirable boyfriend,” Nicholas said this all seriously, which made Seiji laugh. They sat together this morning, as their schedules allowed it. Aiden waved brightly at them, but Seiji wasn’t in the mood to sit with the guys from fencing. He was really just in the mood to have Nicholas to himself. Nicholas let him take them to a solitary table without comment. Until he  _did_  comment, but not on this. He was looking at the back of Aiden’s head, a little furrow between his brows. “Is it true Aiden tried to get you to buy cute underwear?”

Seiji spluttered.  _Of course_  Aiden would have thought that an appropriate detail of their shopping trip to share with Eugene, and  _of course_  Eugene would have found it a hilarious thing to tell Nicholas about. “We’re done talking about this.”

“See, if I could, I’d ban that thought from Aiden  _and_  Eugene.” Though he didn’t specify what  _thought_  he was talking about, Seiji inferred his meaning just fine.

“If it makes you feel any better, I would too,” Seiji said distastefully.

***

Eugene and Aiden clearly had open communications, because Aiden appeared in the gym at the tail end of Seiji’s session with Coach Dmytro. Bidding his personal coach goodbye for the day, Seiji reluctantly acknowledged Aiden.

“Can I help you?” He asked coolly, mad at Aiden’s oversharing of  _his_  personal matters. Aiden dismissed his glacial tone.

“Eugene told me about the drama,” he said.

“Yes, I gathered as much.”

“Are you going to tell me about it from your perspective?”

“What do you think?” Seiji had no intentions of telling anyone anything about last night, beyond what he had already told Eugene.

“Didn’t think so,” Aiden sighed, “but you can’t blame me for hoping.”

“Now that we’ve established your hopes as fruitless, are we done here? I’d like to get on with the rest of my day.”

“Yes, Seiji, I came all this way to be denied gossip,” Aiden said. Seiji didn’t say anything further, knowing that if he just waited long enough, Aiden would divulge his reasons for coming. He was right. “You haven’t checked in with me lately about Nick.”

“What, are you lonely? Or worried? Nice of you to be concerned, Aiden, but I really don’t want to report every detail of my love life to you.”

“You’ve come so far,” Aiden said, pantomiming away a tear. “I remember when you first came to me, begging for my expertise. And now you don’t even write your poor old mother to say you’re doing okay.”

“Did you just…refer to yourself as my mother?”

“Yes, after long deliberation I decided to adopt you. Bobby and Eugene are your brothers now, try to get along with them. Kally’s your aunt, so show him some respect. Tanner’s your crazy uncle, no need to show  _him_  respect. Not sure why Kally married that coot. Harvard, of course, is the dad.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s a friend thing,” Aiden sighed dramatically. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Clearly not.” Seiji decided that friends were tiresome and confusing things. Far too touchy, nosy, and needy for his tastes. And, frankly, weren’t they too old to be playing house? He let it drop, having a more important issue to clear up. “And I did  _not_  come ‘begging to you’ for help.”

“Well, if you want to be particular about it, no, you didn’t. But you did the closest thing I think anyone will ever see to you begging, which is accept my help. So, in a way, yes, you did.”

“Your logic is as terrible as Nicholas’s.” Nicholas. Seiji wondered if he’d find him when he returned to their room. He hadn’t mentioned having plans, but then, with Nicholas, you never really knew. He wasn’t one for planning ahead of time. But Seiji suspected that today he might find him waiting. “What do you want to know, Aiden? I’ve got better things to do than listen to you all afternoon.”

“I’ll bet you do.” A knowing smirk. “I assume because you’ve dated Nick for so long you decided you liked him?”

“Yes.”

“No more trying to sabotage him?”

“No.”

“He found out about that, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t take it well, I hear.”

“Not particularly.”

“I also hear that he almost bit Eugene’s head off this morning for hugging you.”

“That’s not a question.”

“So you guys worked it out?”

“Yes, should I send out a memo so people stop asking me that?”

“You’re the one who wanted a question. Last one. You still like him? You’re happy?”

“Yes,” Seiji answered, although Aiden’s  _last question_ had, in fact, been  _two_  questions.

“Good, then. That’s all I needed to know.” And he stood from his lazy posture against the wall. Seiji wasn’t sure what to make of the whole exchange. It seemed absurd to consider that Aiden cared about his happiness, but it seemed to be what he’d come to inquire after. “I’ll have to make room in the family for a son-in-law now, I suppose.” Or, maybe, he’d just come to irritate Seiji.

But he didn’t feel too irritated as he left the gym and made for the dorms. His good mood could have been due to any number of things, or, more likely, a combination of them. But he was sure that the anticipation of seeing Nicholas had the most hold over his mood. He might have been irritated by this, by Nicholas’s ability to dictate how he felt so completely, if he weren’t so strangely content with the arrangement. Happy. Yes, he was happy with Nicholas.

He quickened his pace very slightly, impatient to be in his room. To be in Nicholas’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes i just get carried away with the friendship and forget im supposed to be giving you guys slash material whoops  
> (is it still called slash? Fuck im old i dont know anything anymore)


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like what I like and I’m not subtle about it sorry ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> (ALSO sorry for typos im a dumbass and don't believe in beta reading ever and sometimes i miss things when editing...periodically I go and reread posted things to clean them up and wow do you guys put up with a lot)

“I left my phone in there,” Nicholas called and Seiji glanced down at the counter. Sure enough, Nicholas’s phone was carelessly tossed there, a corner dangling precariously over the sink basin. Seiji picked it up, then looked around their shared bathroom expecting to find stray articles of clothing. He did. A crumpled black shirt and a desolate sock, hidden away in the corner behind the door. Really, how Nicholas managed to permeate every inch of their space with his mess was a mystery to Seiji.  _Why_  would these particular things be in this particular corner? He had no idea, but he gathered them in a hand nonetheless.

“Take your laundry too,” Seiji said, opening the door just enough to shove the bundle into Nicholas’s arms. As he shut it again, he added, “And make sure to actually put that in the hamper.” Nicholas laughed. Seiji was sure he wouldn’t listen. He returned to the sink to finish brushing his teeth, toothpaste already having been squeezed precisely in proper proportion onto his toothbrush before Nicholas had interrupted.

“You know,” Nicholas’s voice drifted through the door again, “I haven’t seen your old man pajamas since…” Nicholas trailed off as Seiji stepped out of the bathroom and he was unsure if this was because Nicholas was unwilling to do more than reference the night three weeks ago when he’d come charging into their room with blind rage, or if it was because of something else altogether. Judging by the way Nicholas was staring at him, he thought it might be because of  _something else_ , after all.

“Use your words, Nicholas,” Seiji said, a little smug at Nicholas’s reaction.

It wasn’t a desperate night, or even one out of the ordinary. Maybe he was wasting the effects of this combination, but as he’d been picking pajamas for the night, he’d come across the whale shirt and blue shorts tucked away, months ago, for a desperate occasion. And he’d felt like putting them on. He’d felt like seeing this look on Nicholas’s face. No motives behind it but to entice his boyfriend. No bribery, maneuvering, or apology involved.

“I can do better than words,” Nicholas said, already crowding Seiji backwards, until his back hit the wall, a hand landing heavily by his head. Not, Seiji thought, unlike the dream he’d had that’d started this whole thing in motion. Nicholas kissed him as he always did, like he’d been waiting for a very long time for this kiss, like it might be the last. It was intense, deep, but at the same time there was a gentleness to it. Nicholas was careful—much more careful these last weeks—making sure that everything he did was to Seiji’s liking. It was sweet, and it had a way of making Seiji’s head light. He liked it. A lot.

But, at the same time, he wanted Nicholas to stop treating him like he’d break or flee if he were pushed harder against the wall, kissed rougher, or held tighter, more forcefully. He wanted the fierce, passionate, possessive quality in Nicholas’s eyes, in his kisses, his touches, his actions. Not all the time, not as a replacement to this careful, loving treatment. But sometimes, it would be nice. More often than he had before, Seiji considered baiting Nicholas into a fight or provoking his jealousy to get that raw quality. Maybe the pajamas had an ulterior motive after all. Maybe he  _was_  a little desperate.

Nicholas pressed soft kisses against Seiji’s mouth, trailed a hand up and down his back slowly, sweetly. It was obvious, in the tenderness of Nicholas’s touch, that Nicholas cared for him greatly. Adored him. Treasured him. Seiji made a contented noise, pulling Nicholas closer against him. This  _was_  good. And, really, he’d take anything Nicholas gave him without complaint.

What  _did_  warrant cause for complaint was when Nicholas stepped away from him. Seiji was breathless, against the wall exactly where Nicholas had left him, and none too pleased as he watched Nicholas walk across the room to sit on his bed. Seiji frowned, scrutinizing Nicholas for a moment before seeing that he didn’t intend to come back. And yet, nor did he look like he’d meant for Seiji to follow. He sighed, pushing himself away from the wall to stand in front of Nicholas, arms crossed.

“You’re thinking.”

“You don’t sound happy about that,” Nicholas laughed. Seiji did not.

“I’m not. Whenever you start thinking, you stop kissing me, and then you say something dumb. So, what is it this time?”

“You have no faith in me.”

“No,” Seiji agreed, frowning down at Nicholas.

“You look so fucking hot right now,” his voice didn’t change at all, didn’t waver at what Seiji thought was an embarrassing thing to say. Seiji’s cheeks warmed up. Was it possible that Nicholas had just stepped off for a better view? That all he’d wanted to say was  _that_? It seemed unlikely. But Nicholas continued, his tone roughing in what Seiji now knew was  _want._  “I didn’t dream you’d ever wear the grey Micky pajamas with the shorts again, and I definitely didn’t think you’d have  _more_ like them. Damn, you look so good.” Seiji wasn’t sure what to do under this attention. He hadn’t really  _meant_  for Nicholas to actually use his words. So he stood awkwardly, trying not to fidget, and wishing that Nicholas would shut up, or that he could disappear. But, embarrassing as he found this, he was pleased to hear that Nicholas thought he looked good. Almost wanted him to go on, even as he wished for him to shut up. “Your legs are great, have I ever told you that?” Seiji shook his head slightly, then realized it was a rhetorical question. “Well, they are, and I  _really_  like seeing so much of them. And your a—,” Nicholas cut off at a sharp look from Seiji. “Right. No talking about your butt. Just know that, if I  _were_  talking about it, I’d say that it looks super good in those shorts too. And the shirt—fuck it’s adorable. You’re, like, irresistible right now,” Nicholas ebbed to a pause and Seiji couldn’t help but wonder at the irony in being irresistible and yet having Nicholas resist him so willingly and easily. Nicholas spoke again, but all longing seemed to have been stripped from his voice, replaced with complete earnestness. “But I can’t stop thinking that—I mean, I love your cute PJs, but you know you don’t have to wear them anymore, right?”

“I never  _had_  to wear them,” Seiji said, eyebrows scrunching as he tried to figure out what Nicholas was on about. It was an abrupt change in topic—in  _mood—_ and he was struggling to catch up.

“It’s just that, I’m already yours, so you don’t have to keep trying to, uh,  _get_ me. I like  _you_. Whatever you wear. Even if you’re sexy as hell in shorts, I like you just as much in, say, plain blue pajama pants.”

“You’re very self-centered, aren’t you?” Seiji said. “I wear these pajamas because I want to. Because I like them. For one thing, I’ve already got them, it’d be wasteful not to use them. For another, they’re comfortable.”

“Right, yeah,” now Nicholas  _was_  red. Flustered. “But you haven’t worn your old ones since I broke up with you.” He looked like he regretted very much that he’d decided to start this conversation. Seiji knew  _he_  regretted it. “Maybe I  _am_  being dumb and reading too much into what you’re wearing to bed, but it took, what, two months of dating before you wore your normal old pajamas again. Looking back, it just feels like that means something. Like you were secure in the knowledge that I liked you and you could relax—stop trying to get my attention all the time. But you haven’t worn them since and I can’t stop thinking that I did that. Fucked up and made you doubt my feelings.”

“You’re the one who’s been strange and cautious since then,” Seiji said, defensive. Defensive because Nicholas might be right. He hadn’t thought about what his choice in pajamas said about his security in Nicholas’s affections, but he remembered that night. Remembered Nicholas asking him to wait up for him. He hadn’t thought about what he was putting on that night, hadn’t cared especially. It had been an absent and uncaring decision that he wasn’t even aware of consciously. It hadn’t mattered, he’d known Nicholas would kiss him just the same when he returned. It was only when he’d seen Nicholas with Bobby through their window that he’d noticed what he was wearing. When he’d wondered if he should change into something  _cuter._  Was he really that insecure?

“I guess we’re not as fixed as we thought we were,” Nicholas said quietly and Seiji almost laughed. No, maybe they weren’t. He bit his cheek in preparation for what he was sure he had to say to repair the damage created that night. But no, that wasn’t exactly right. This issue predated that fight by months.

“You were going to stay with Bobby. Why?” Seiji didn’t meet Nicholas’s eyes as he asked. He kept his eyes determinately on the poster behind Nicholas’s head. “Why Bobby and not Eugene?”

“Uh,” Nicholas didn’t understand this line of questioning. Good. It gave Seiji more time to pretend he wasn’t so insecure. “I was going to Bobby’s room because Dante, his roommate, is chill. Gene’s got a snitch of a roommate. They’ve got it worked out so he doesn’t blab on Gene for missing curfew, but no way would he keep his big mouth shut if I stayed there against school rules.” Seiji nodded, annoyingly relieved at this explanation.

“I thought you were going out with Eugene that night. That’s what you said. Why was Bobby there?”

“He’s my friend?”

“I know,” Seiji tried not to snap at Nicholas.  _Of course_ he knew. Nicholas and Bobby were just as close as Eugene and Nicholas were, always hugging and whispering and gravitating towards each other. He was very aware that they were friends. “Why didn’t you tell me he was going?”

“Does it matter? I didn’t realize I was supposed to tell you every little thing.” Nicholas, clearly, was also trying not to snap.

“You don’t. You know you don’t. When have I ever gotten mad at you for not telling me about your plans? You’re your own person and you have your own life outside of me. I know that and it doesn’t bother me. But can’t you think of any reason why it might bother me that you were with  _Bobby_ , that you specifically didn’t tell me that he’d be there with you and Eugene, after which you said you were going to leave me to sleep in  _his_  room?”

“What?” Nicholas was dumbfounded, Seiji didn’t even need to look at him to know. “You’re worried about  _Bobby?”_

“I’m not—I don’t think there’s any reason for me to be,” Seiji said, still speaking to the wall. “I trust you. I know you like me. But Bobby’s so cute and I’m—not. You like to say that I am, but that’s because you like cute things and you like me and so your terrible logic decided that I must be cute.”

“Seiji, would you look at me?”

“No. I’d rather not.”

“Hey,” Nicholas said, and Seiji saw him stand from peripheral vision, heard the bed creak. Then Nicholas was forcing his head to turn, to look right at him. “I won’t deny that I like cute people, because I’m sure you heard it from Aiden who heard it from Gene who heard it from me that that’s my type. But I’m not lying or deranged when I say that you are, by far, the cutest person I’ve ever dated. And I know that you don’t really count that as a good thing or like being called cute, so I try not to be super overboard about it. But I do think you’re cute and it’s because I just never would have expected you to be like—like  _this,”_ Nicholas raked eyes over Seiji again, then landed his gaze on his face. He brushed a thumb over Seiji’s incredibly pink cheek, as if to emphasize his point. It was true that no one would expect him to be like this—pajamas and pink cheeks and every other embarrassing part of himself he’d let Nicholas see.

“Like a grouchy cat showing affection,” Seiji said, remembering something.

“Yeah, just like that,” Nicholas grinned.

“Aiden said that,” Seiji said it more to himself, to place the memory that had surfaced. Nicholas’s jaw set, steely and intense. “I told him not to call me cute,” Seiji reassured.

“You’ve told me not to call you cute.”

“But I meant it when I said it to Aiden, and he knows it.”

“I’m the only one who gets to see you be like this. I’m the only one who gets to know how cute you are,” Nicholas insisted, a hand grabbing Seiji’s wrist and holding hard to it.

“If you say so,” Seiji said, lips curling into a small smile. There was that look he’d been missing. “And you don’t have to be so worried about me, either, you know.”

“I know you and Aiden are just friends, I’m not crazy.”

“No, I meant you won’t scare me away if you don’t always hold back.”

“I never want to hurt you again,” Nicholas admitted, entirely serious. “I think I’ve done enough of that.”

“You won’t,” Seiji returned, equally serious.

“You won’t let me?” It was a genuine question, not a teasing one, and it caught Seiji off guard. Had Nicholas really been so worried over this?

“You won’t let yourself.”

“But you’ll say if I do something you don’t like, won’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll add your old man pajamas back into rotation?”

“On the condition that you stop calling them that, yes.”

“Okay, deal,” Nicholas kissed against his neck. Seiji shivered.

“There’s another reason I like these pajamas,” he said, intent on pushing Nicholas a little bit further.

“What’s that?” Nicholas asked, surfacing to meet Seiji’s eyes, an amused glimmer in his as he did so.

“I like the way you look at me when I wear them,” he felt reckless, revealing this.

“How do I look at you?”

“Like you’d like nothing more than to devour me.” He felt Nicholas’s reaction to this in the tightening of his grip, the hitch in his breath, the dilation of his pupils.

“Is that permission, then?” Nicholas asked, voice returned to the husky timber of arousal. “To devour you?”

“I’d say it’s more than permission.” Seiji felt a hot wave of anticipatory pricks at the look in Nicholas’s eyes. Not that he saw that look for long; Nicholas wasted no more time with questions. Forcefully, Nicholas pulled Seiji to him by the wrist he still held. Seiji didn’t lose his balance, but he let Nicholas catch him anyway. Let Nicholas take his mouth just as easily, no pretense or sweet, closed mouthed kisses this time. It was clear to Seiji that this kiss was not carefully constructed, planned, and executed. It wasn’t cautious in the least. Nicholas wasn’t thinking about anything more than kissing him and it transmitted to him clearly. Finally, he’d stopped holding back. Stopped worrying.

Nicholas was so close now, but not close enough. Seiji had the dizzying realization that he was pretty sure Nicholas could  _never_  be close enough. But he could try. Was absolutely desperate to try. With great effort, he disentangled from Nicholas, to an exasperated grumble of a protest.

“Arms,” Seiji said sharply. Nicholas, the great oaf, just blinked at him. “Arms up  _now_ ,” Seiji tried again, struggling to get any coherent thoughts out of his brain, much less complete sentences out of his mouth.

“Oh,” Nicholas said dumbly.  _“Oh,”_  and he snapped to attention, doing as Seiji had asked and raising his arms above his head so Seiji could shove his shirt up and off. It fell to the floor, forgotten immediately. Nicholas only allowed Seiji a moment to admire the expanse of skin he’d just exposed before he was yanked against the solid chest once more. That worked too, Seiji supposed. Nicholas was kissing him again, urgent and fast, and it was all Seiji could do to grasp to Nicholas’s back and steady himself from the vertigo-inducing effect of it.

“Nicholas,” Seiji gasped, though he had no reason to say it. He felt the smile Nicholas gave in answer, and then Nicholas was biting at his lips again, hard enough to feel but not hard enough to hurt, and Seiji curled his hands to half fists at Nicholas’s back, enough for his nails to bite into skin. Nicholas groaned, insuring Seiji that he hadn’t caused any undue pain with his unthinking reaction. Seiji thought he might have responded in kind to that groan, but he couldn’t be sure. He tended to tune such things out, editing the sounds he produced down to more dignified sighs and heavy breathing.

Nicholas’s attention strayed, his mouth making the usual path downward from Seiji’s lips. He stopped at Seiji’s neck, which was usually off limits by mutual possession of common sense. But tonight was not a night for common sense, so Seiji tilted his head up to grant Nicholas better access. As teeth scraped against his skin, Seiji pulled his hands further down Nicholas’s back, nails trailing down lines he thought might be visible in the morning. It seemed only fair, after all, Nicholas was in the process of branding him with a hickey that would take weeks to fade completely.

Nicholas was tugging at his hair, adjusting the position of his head to steal another kiss. Seiji felt Nicholas’s free hand sneaking up his over-large shirt to start its relentless teasing. Nicholas knew Seiji’s sensitivities better than he did at this point, was able to acutely and efficiently pinpoint which spots required what pressure to make Seiji’s knees buckle. And buckle they did. Nicholas’s fingertips brushed so lightly over a spot low on Seiji’s side, just above the waistband of his shorts, that it was almost unnoticeable. But Seiji noticed it, and when Nicholas brushed over the same spot again, Seiji actually felt himself tremble.

“Nick,” he said, again with no reason to call out the name other than to hear it. To connect it to this jumble of sensations and desires. To assure himself that every time he called that name from now on, it would be answered.

“I like,” Nicholas said, pausing to catch his breath, “when you call me Nick. It feels—special. From you, it feels special.”

“It is,” Seiji said, pulling Nicholas against him so that he felt their hearts beat—too fast—as though they were one, so that he could feel the raise and fall of Nicholas’s chest against his own. He let his head rest on Nicholas’s shoulder, a spot that seemed made for this exact purpose. “But I like to call you Nicholas because almost no one else does, not anymore. It’s mine. And, on special occasions, I’ll call you Nick. And when I do,  _that’s_  mine too.”

“Don’t be modest,” Nicholas kissed against his head, right by his ear so that every word he said was crystal clear. “That’s not all that’s yours. I’m yours, too.”

“Is it too late to ask for an exchange? You’re a hassle to take care of.” But he registered the way his heart skipped a beat, the way his stomach flipped. Nicholas laughed, and Seiji was sure he needn’t express his pleasure, was sure Nicholas could read it off him easily.

“Did you know that I love you?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t mind hearing it again.”

“I love you.”

“Again, please,” he was feeling greedy.

“I love you.”

Satisfied, Seiji lifted his head from Nicholas’s shoulder, met Nicholas’s eyes. Brown eyes so unremarkable and yet so perfect and kind and passionate. “I love you too,” he said, staring into those eyes. Then his gaze dropped to Nicholas’s lips. Carefully, Seiji pressed his own lips against them. It was the first time he’d ever physically initiated a kiss, and Nicholas’s surprise was tangible, but his smile was, once again, evident even though it couldn’t be seen. Here were the gentle and loving kisses, given with great care and attention. It was so good—so intolerably, unbearably good, especially after the reckless fervor of moments before.

Nicholas had a hand at the nape of his neck, guiding him gently, the other still exploring his back, sides, and chest. Seiji smiled, as best he could with Nicholas’s tongue in his mouth, at an old memory. One he hadn’t thought of in months. Their first kiss. Nicholas had been very handsy and it had surprised Seiji when a wandering hand like the one tonight had landed on his ass. Nicholas had never tried such a stunt again. Mimicking a different memory from that night, Seiji lifted one of his hands from its grip against Nicholas’s wonderfully warm back. He found Nicholas’s hand and grabbed it, bringing it away from its exploration. He placed it low on his back, then slid it down, leaving it there for Nicholas to decide what he wanted to do. Again, Nicholas’s surprise radiated off him, and Seiji laughed into his open mouth, tangling the hand that had just left Nicholas’s up and into his messy hair.

Seiji felt Nicholas’s breath hitch, felt a mumbled but impassioned  _“Fuck,”_  against his mouth, and finally Nicholas seemed to get his wits about because a moment later Nicholas adjusted completely to this new position, hand relaxing to the curve of Seiji’s ass. Seiji was surprised at how much he liked it, but by now he shouldn’t be surprised by anything. When it came to Nicholas, he liked everything.

“You keep surprising me,” Nicholas said, and Seiji  _hmm_ ed in response, not really paying attention. “Every time I think I’ve got you figured out, you go and pull some new shit that I’m completely unprepared for.”

“Is that a complaint?” Seiji asked, nuzzling against Nicholas.

“No,” he said, grin evident in his voice. And even though Seiji expected it, he still let out the smallest yelp—more of a gasp, really—when the hand on his ass gave a firm squeeze. “Keep surprising me.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endings are hard, have some word vomit. Anyway thanks for sticking with me, guys! Sorry (not really) about the April Fools prank and thanks for forgiving me even though I'm mean. Love you all bunches and bunches <3

Seiji dreamed of Nicholas. The dreams were vague and unfocused, a swirl of images and memories, of smiles and soft laughter and loving kisses. Good dreams. And Dream Nicholas was as handsome and enticing as he’d ever been, vague and unfocused though he was.

Then, Nicholas was smiling at Seiji brightly over the top of a chemistry textbook. Which was ridiculous. They weren’t even taking chem, and if they were, Seiji had no disillusions that Nicholas would be reading the textbook. But Dream Nicholas went back to reading, diligent and focused and clearly a dream. From the start of this scene, there was something odd about Nicholas. Still, Seiji took in the constructed moment. A small wooden table on the porch of a small cafe, a bright sun overhead, coffee in front of them both. He reached for his own mug, but in the dream his movement was fast and jarring, the mug was at his lips fast as a blink, coffee spilling over his hand. Nicholas set down his book and reached across the little table to lower Seiji’s mug, blotting his hand with a napkin and a fond, patient smile. That smiling face suddenly seemed older than Seiji knew it should be. Not by much, but definitely matured. He seemed wiser, surer of himself, fully taking up the space he occupied for once.

“No need to rush,” he said, and suddenly the cafe was gone and Seiji was back in his room at Kings Row, Nicholas looking normal and young. But he was shirtless, close against Seiji, still smiling that same smile. “We’ve got time.”

Seiji woke up, disoriented. Nicholas shifted next to him, cuddled closer even as Seiji sat up, even as he reached for his phone and checked the time. Nowhere near time to wake up. Seiji sighed, dreams of Nicholas always seemed to cost him a good night’s sleep. The real Nicholas was an exact replica of that last Dream Nicholas. Or, more accurately, his mind had copied this Nicholas perfectly and planted him in that dream. He looked as he always did, messy and sprawling, young and unassuming, and Seiji wondered if he would grow into himself. Wondered what it would take for him to feel comfortable and confident in all aspects of life, and not just as he took control of a kiss or in fleeting moments after dominating a bout. Seiji thought he might know. Thought it might have something to do with proving himself a worthy fencer. Perhaps he wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d beaten Seiji. It could happen, Seiji mused, but he wasn’t going to make it easy for him. Nicholas had a long way to go before Seiji needed to seriously worry about him making good on the first promise he’d ever made Seiji. But…Seiji had seen, in tiny moments when he fenced, what Nicholas could do. What he could be.

“You could be great,” he told the sleeping lump attached to him. “Better than Jesse.” Seiji wouldn’t let Nicholas be better than him, but… “I might even consider you a rival.” It was like the words had somehow drifted into Nicholas’s own dreams because the faintest smile seemed to appear on his lips seconds later. Nicholas had the best smiles. Seiji was weak to them, and Nicholas knew it. Played it to his advantage, at times, too. He’d always wanted to capture one of Nicholas’s smiles, to catch it and hold it in his hands. The closest he’d ever gotten were the smiles pressed against his skin, of which he got many. But, looking at Nicholas sleep, he wanted to take that tiny smile.

Carefully, he did just that. Tracing the slight upturn of Nicholas’s lips with the very tips of his fingers. Evidently, he wasn’t careful enough. Nicholas stirred awake, blinked up at him.

“What time is it?” He asked, voice scratchy from sleep and long, vigorous kissing  _before_  sleep. Seiji liked the way the words rasped out of Nicholas now.

“Not time to be awake.”

A frown. “You’re awake.”

“A dream.”

“Nightmare?”

“No.”

“Then why are you awake?”

Seiji only shrugged. He didn’t know any better than Nicholas why he was awake.

“Then if you don’t need me to save you from any monsters, I’m going back to sleep. I’m not a fucking vampire like you.” And he rolled over, settling on his stomach, although he snaked one arm around Seiji’s thigh and lay on it like some sort of replacement pillow. The arrangement wouldn’t work when Seiji lay back down. Nicholas would have to find a new way to hold to him when he did, and Seiji was sure he would do so. Glancing at Nicholas, Seiji saw faint red marks trailing down his back. He remembered putting them there, hours earlier. He traced them over again, a compulsory and unanalyzed act. Nicholas’s back tensed at his first touch, but it was only fleeting surprise and he relaxed again in no time at all.

 _“There’s no need to rush. We’ve got time.”_  Words not only from his dream, but from tonight. He’d been so engrossed in Nicholas that breathing had been hard, and thinking absolutely impossible. It had been wonderful. It had also been terrifying. Too much, too fast. He’d asked for it, invited it, wanted it. But Nicholas’s kisses, his hands, his skin, his smell…Seiji had suddenly been overwhelmed. He bit his lip at the memory, color taking his cheeks. He’d been fine— _more than fine_ —until he’d thought about what happens next. He wasn’t ready for— _that._ Not yet.

He remembered jerking away from Nicholas, remembered how Nicholas had been holding him too tight for him to get very far. Remembered the panic he’d felt at what was expected of him. The alarm in Nicholas’s eyes turning to worry and hurt.

“I can’t—,” Seiji had said, trying to push away from Nicholas while still clutching at his back. “It’s—,”

“Too fast,” Nicholas had finished, “I know.” Then, again, softly smiling, “Seiji, I know.”

“You know?”

“Yeah,” he’d refrained from laughing. “I wasn’t planning to  _actually_  devour you. Not tonight. I know better.”

“Meaning what?” His panic had, by that point, faded, but he’d been offended at Nicholas’s surety that nothing more would be happening.

“Babe—,”

“When did I give you permission to call me  _babe?”_

“You done being pissy?” Nicholas had asked, exasperated but smiling. A combination he was fond of and which never failed to raise Seiji’s hackles. “Listen, all I’m saying is that I know you well enough to know you weren’t planning on sex tonight. And we haven’t had the obligatory awkward sex talk yet, so I wouldn’t have done anything anyway.”

“Obligatory talk—you’ve done this before?”

“I mean, yeah. Is that…okay?” Nicholas had sounded genuinely nervous.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Seiji had said it more to himself than Nicholas. It was just that these things didn’t always occur to him. He’d been aware of Nicholas’s ample experience in kissing, and  _that_  had made him feel plenty self-conscious. Not that he liked to let on that it did…but, “I don’t mind. Why would I?” He’d felt the breath of relief expelled from Nicholas’s chest. “But, what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you okay with—how I am?” It hadn’t been a question simply about the state of Seiji’s sexual experience. Seiji knew full well that he could be accused of being a tease, the way he initiated something and then stopped short, implications and consequences finally catching up with him. It had to be tiring and unsatisfactory. Nicholas must get bored of it, frustrated by it.

“The way I see it,” Nicholas had said, and as Seiji had met his eyes, he’d seen that they understood exactly what was meant, “there’s no need to rush. We’ve got time.”

Seiji had just nodded, relaxing, relieved. After a moment, “Have I ruined the mood again?”

“Not a chance,” and as easily as it had been paused, Nicholas had been all over him again.

Now Seiji was brought back to the present by Nicholas biting his  _thigh,_ of all things. Seiji jerked entirely from surprise. He hadn’t anticipated that. No doubt, that’s why Nicholas had done it. He so liked to make Seiji react.

“Must you bite every inch of me you can get to? Really, you call me the vampire, but you’re the one who never puts away his fangs.”

“Hey, fuck you, I’m a werewolf. Also, it’s your own damn fault for wearing such cute pajama shorts that leave you so exposed to biting.”

“Perhaps, but  _you’re_  the moron that was seduced by cute pajamas.”

“Correction,” Nicholas said, looping an arm around his waist and pulling him down to the bed, “I was seduced by  _you_  in cute pajamas. That made all the difference.”

“If you say so,” but Seiji was secretly elated with the correction. It implied that no other desperate, confused individual could have accomplished this complete seduction of Nicholas by wearing large pajama shirts with whales and Micky Mouse on them.

“I do say so,” Nicholas said, kissing the shell of Seiji’s ear. There was contented silence, then Nicholas laughed, subdued and low. “Eugene says you were seduced by my shirts.”

“Or lack thereof,” Seiji said to more laughter. “I wouldn’t have noticed,” he admitted, “I don’t know for how long I could have ignored it. But I wouldn’t have noticed it so soon if I hadn’t dreamt of you.”

“Was it a good dream?” Nicholas asked curiously.

“Yes,” Seiji conceded after a long time deliberating. He hadn’t thought it was anything resembling good at first, but looking back on it, he thought it probably  _was_  a good dream. “But not as good as the reality of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how after a Marvel movie there’s like a lil sentence like "CAPTAIN MARVEL WILL RETURN" that lets you know that you haven’t seen the last of them? Maybe you don’t know exactly when their next project will come out but you can rest easy knowing there are plans for that project and they’ll be back in it soon enough...  
> yeah, this is like that. but for me.  
> APPLESANDBANNAS747 WILL RETURN


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